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A Whitefish Legacy Evolves

Nelson’s Ace Hardware celebrates 70 years serving downtown Whitefish as they prepare to build a new facility, move to new location

By Molly Priddy
From left: Marilyn Nelson, Rick Nelson and Mariah Joos, pictured outside Nelson's Ace Hardware in downtown Whitefish on July 26, 2018. Greg Lindstrom | Flathead Beacon

WHITEFISH – To get a feeling for what Nelson’s Ace Hardware store has meant to downtown Whitefish, all you have to do is take Rick and Marilyn Nelson outside.

Within seconds, people they’ve known and called customers for decades swarm both of the Nelsons, and the Nelsons smile and laugh and catch up with everyone they can.

“I bought my first stereo from you,” said a woman who happened to see the Nelsons standing outside, followed up quickly by another woman’s exclamation that she’d found her first washing machine in the store on Central Avenue.

Nelson’s Ace Hardware celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, started in in 1947 when Wilfred and Ruth Nelson — Rick’s parents — left the flatlands of eastern Montana to go out on their own in the mountain valleys of Northwest Montana.

The Nelsons bought Marshall Wells Store, one of a half-dozen hardware stores in Whitefish. At that time, those stores were the only places to get merchandise, and they sold all manner of items, from traditional hardware to carpets.

From then to 1964, Rick’s dad ran the hardware store in a small building. In 1964, Wilfred Nelson bought the car lot next to his hardware store, constructed a building, and expanded the store to its current 6,000 square feet. Rick started working at the hardware store early on.

“I was 2 years old, counting nails in the nail bin,” Rick said last week.

Rick took over the business from his parents in 1972 at the ripe old age of 24. He and his brother Don Nelson owned it together (until 2003, when Don retired). Life continued apace as he and Marilyn married and built a family. As their own world grew, so did Whitefish, and so did the expectations of what a hardware store could be.

They leased a warehouse in Whitefish, and added three storage units, but it’s still not enough space. They sell about 50,000 different items now — not 50,000 total, but 50,000 types of things to purchase — and have two to three delivery trucks dropping off more each week.

The hardware store had outgrown its humble beginnings, and the Nelsons thought they might retire and sell it. But then their daughter, Mariah Joos, told them she wanted to run the store as the third generation.

They decided that if they wanted Nelson’s to survive another 30 years, long enough for their daughter to be able to retire, it would be necessary to move into a bigger building with space for parking, especially.

“We’ve been feeling pressure with parking, especially for the last several years,” Rick said. “It gets worse every year.”

What was a blue-collar, hardscrabble town when Wilfred Nelson started his endeavor has transformed into a resort town, full of tourists who love the city’s downtown feel. Rick said that when he first told customers they’d be moving to a new location, the initial response was sadness.

“But after they’ve been around the block three times trying to find a parking spot, they get excited about the idea,” Rick said with a laugh.

A rendering of the new Nelson’s Ace Hardware building in Whitefish.

The new building, to be located on U.S. Highway 93 along the town’s southern corridor in the former Army-Navy building, will be 14,000 square feet, and allows the Nelsons to display lawn furniture, mowers, and the grills that have become signature Ace Hardware staples.

Parking will be solved with an easy-access lot, and the new building will recycle 80 to 90 percent of the materials from the demolished building. It will be energy efficient and forward thinking, with plans for electric car charging stations in the parking lot and solar capabilities on the roof. They wanted to design the building to make it look like it had been there a while, Marilyn said.

She also said the family business was able to survive so long because they owned their own real estate, had neighborly relationships with the other businesses and banks in town, and the community supported a locally and independently owned hardware store.

As they stood on the sidewalk before posing for a photo, the crowd around the Nelsons grew. People introduced visiting nephews, there were hugs all around, and in the middle of this appreciative traffic jam on the sidewalk were the Nelsons, smiling and laughing.

“Sometimes I have to take my work home with me, because I don’t get a thing done at the store,” Marilyn said laughing as she walked back inside.