In 1890, a young man by the name of Joseph Francis Walsh was sent off on a boat from Ireland to America. He would become the founder of the Walsh’s Ace Hardware family of stores. With both his parents dying by the time he was six months old, he had a hard childhood. He moved around living with different family members until being placed in an orphanage. At the age of 15, he ran away, and then tried multiple different jobs until the year 1913.
In 1913 J.F. Walsh & Sons in Tennyson, Wisconsin opened. Joe Walsh purchased the general store for $500 from John P. Beiter who opened the store in 1909. In 1929 J.F. Walsh was incorporated when Joe's four sons were taken into the firm. On July 5th, 1957 a fire started at the Tennyson store which burned from around 11:30 am to 4:00 pm, destroying the main store. The fire ironically occurred on the first day of a weeklong sale called “The Red Hot Sale.”
In 1958, Don Walsh, Joe Walsh’s son, started rebuilding the store in Tennyson, and it was renamed Walsh’s Store. Many additions were made to the store in the following years. Then in 1966, Mic Walsh, Don Walsh’s son, started to work full-time at the Tennyson store. Joe Walsh retired in December of 1960, handing the ownership down to his son Don. In 1972, the Tennyson store joined the Ace Hardware Corporation and took on the name Walsh’s Ace Hardware.
Don Walsh officially retired on May 18th, 1990 handing the business down to his four children. When asked about why he wanted to work at the Walsh Store, Mic told me, “Growing up, it's what I always knew I wanted to do.” He worked down there all the time growing up and never thought about doing anything else. Don Walsh’s children were the last owners of the Tennyson store until 1998 when the Gondola train was started in the basement of the old Walsh store.
There have been many Walsh stores in the area over the years, but how many were there, and who owned them all? When I asked Mic, he had this to say: “There were four Walsh stores in my family, all owned by my dad. His brother had two in Muscoda and Richland Center, and they've grown since then. Then there was one in Dubuque, and that's all.” In 1940, the Muscoda store was started up and run by two of Joe’s sons, Ned and Bob Walsh. On October 29th, 1949 there was a fire at the Muscoda store that damaged about half of the building. The store was remodeled and added on to soon after.
On October 11th, 1957 Clifford Walsh, another one of Joe’s sons, opened a Walsh store in Dubuque at 13th & Central. In 1978, another Walsh store was built in Prairie Du Chien and run by Ric Walsh. Then in 1980, Don bought another building in Galena, making it into another Walsh store. In 1984, Don rented out a building in Maquoketa, starting another Walsh store. Also in 1984, Ned and Jim purchased a hardware store in downtown Richland Center, which they remodeled and changed the name to yet another Walsh’s Ace Hardware. On October 22nd, 1984, the Muscoda store burned to the ground, and a month later the store was reopened after relocating to the old furniture store building. In 1986, the tire mart in Richland Center was purchased, so the downtown store was relocated. Then in 1987, the Muscoda store was rebuilt on the old site as another Walsh’s Ace Hardware store. In 1997, the Prairie Du Chein, Galena, Maquoketa, and Tennyson stores were all sold to Central Tractor. The Walsh’s store in Dubuque closed in 2000. The Richland Center store was relocated to the old Walmart building after it was purchased in 2002.
With a business that started over a hundred years ago, you have to wonder, how has the hardware business changed over the years? Mic explained, “We were farm hardware, so we kind of got hit hard when farms were getting bigger and bigger.” He says that the bigger farms coming in, in the bigger areas, squeezed the small-town businesses out of competing with the bigger city businesses. The very first Walsh store, purchased in 1913, was bought by Joe Walsh for $500. The building was 50 feet by 100 feet and included a basement. A building this size today would cost around $750,000. The prices of items have drastically increased, but that is the same with just about anything.
From one business to another; as soon as the Tennyson Walsh store was sold, another business run by Mic and his brother Ric Walsh was started in the basement of the old store. This business is known as Gondola Train. Working in the hardware business as long as Mic has, he was asked if the business experience helped him to start up another business. He said, “Oh yeah, it helped a lot because we knew what people needed and no one was furnishing that for them.” He then told me some details about the startup of Gondola Train.
They knew no one around here was moving shelving around at the time, so they went to Lozier, who was the largest store fixture company in the country at the time, and they were told that it couldn't be done. Mic said, “But we knew it could be done because we were already doing it. So we just had to work past them because they were telling people shelving wasn't meant to be moved.” Then it took several years to get the gondola shelf moving equipment into places that would use the product. Gondola Train now has its product in many big stores, not only in the U.S. but in many other countries as well. Gondola Train was awarded a patent in 1998.
The Walsh’s Ace Hardware stores have expanded and changed over the years, with only three stores left: one in Richland Center, one in Muscoda, and a newer store in La Crosse, all owned by Pete Walsh, the grandson of Ned Walsh. Two of the other grandsons of the original Walsh’s Store founder have even transformed one of the previous stores into an even bigger business, Gondola Train. The Walsh Store’s legacy will continue to live on, not only in the Walsh family, but in the many communities that have relied on these stores for their hardware supplies and goods.