A Home Depot Rival Closes After 87 Years in Business
A Home Depot rival has now closed after 87 years in business. Vernon Hardware & Auto Parts will shutter on July 31 after three generations.
Major retailers such as The Home Depot and Lowe’s accounted for around 56% of all home improvement-related sales in the US last year, according to industry data.
Smaller rivals such as Vernon Hardware & Auto Parts have been struggling to compete.
“It was terribly hard,” co-owner Betsy Ethington said of making the decision.
“We tried selling the business. We said the family business needs a new family and we didn’t find a family, so that’s really hard.”
Ethington co-owns the business with her brother, Andy Fults, and its roots go back to 1939, when their grandfather, Fred Eberly, opened the store in downtown Vernon, selling furniture and kitchen cabinets with some farm and hardware supplies, per Argus-Press.
By 1962, their father, Robert Fults, had assumed ownership, shifting the business’s focus primarily to farm supplies and auto parts.
In 1979, with business slowing downtown, the store relocated to its current location at 7200 E. M-71, where higher traffic brought more customers.
Robert passed the torch to Andy Fults in 1995 and Ethington joined him in 2000. Under their ownership, the store — an affiliate of Napa Auto Parts and True Value Hardware — sells hardware supplies and auto parts and has evolved over the years, from its inventory to its day-to-day operations.
“How we deal with everything has changed,” Ethington said. “We have computers now whereas everything before was paper and pencil.”
Over the years, generations of local families have shopped at the store, and Ethington and Fults said the relationships they built with customers will be what they miss most.
Throughout the rest of July before the store closure, merchandise will be discounted by 55% for any cash purchases and 50% for credit or debit.
Additionally, these rates will increase as the liquidation sale continues, getting as high as 90% for cash and 85% for card on July 30, specifically.
It’s Not Just Small Businesses Closing Stores
It’s not just small businesses closing stores, however; JCPenney is closing yet another mall store just three months from now in Fort Worth, Texas.
The JCPenney at Ridgmar has been there since the inception of the mall in 1976.
It was loved by shoppers and seen as one of the last anchor stores since Macy’s closed back in 2016.
Sears and Neiman Marcus both also closed their Ridgmar stores in 2017.
This leaves Dillard’s as the malls largest store once JCPenney closes permanently.
The company released a statement explaining the reason behind the store closure:
“Regretfully, we are unable to continue our current lease terms for this store location and have been unable to find another suitable location in the market.”
Now JCPenney is having a closing sale of up to 20 to 50 percent off.
All sales after July 16 are final meaning returns and exchanges cannot be accepted.
“We are grateful to our dedicated associates and the loyal customers who have shopped at our Fort Worth location through the years.
We hope to continue serving them at our other Dallas-Fort Worth locations and online,” the company said.
JCPenney’s store closures have been triggered by multifaceted financial struggles, including being hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic.
You throw in a shift in shopping habits and inflation, and you have a dramatic landslide in sales.
This led to 175 JCPenney store locations closing nationwide between 2020 and 2021 alone.
The company also reported recently that net sales declined more than 4% in the fiscal quarter that ended on May 2 in 2025.
In the United States, JCPenney operates approximately 640 stores but continues to close locations to this day.
JCPenney had around 1,000 stores in 2016.
Unlike many unfortunate small businesses, JCPenney still remains cited as the number one best department store in 2026 according to USA Today’s 10 Best.
Related: A Famous Shoe Company Is Now Exiting Several Countries
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