Longtime patrons of Ridgway Hardware may recall the ranchers who gathered most mornings around an old stove in the middle of the store, puffing cigarettes, sipping coffee and solving the world’s problems.

Today, the stove is long gone. The smokers have moved outside to the camp chairs on the front porch, where they still visit with those who come and go for everything from a new toilet flapper to drywall screws.

But just like they did back then, customers now will still find a friendly face, an offer of help and, more likely than not, the tool or can of paint they needed.

From left to right, employee Joanne Taplin, manager Evan Hart, manager Stephen Laster and employee Toby Osborne
each specialize in various facets of the business to help customers. The hardware store will celebrate
its 40th anniversary with a community event on June 14.
Erin McIntyre – Ouray County Plaindealer

Forty years after it opened in the old Bank Building on Clinton Street, Ridgway Hardware is something of a happy exception. In a marketplace dominated by Amazon home delivery, the internet and chain stores, it holds its own as a customer service- driven neighborhood store on a first-name basis with its shoppers, owned and operated by the same family who started it.

“This business is the hub of this community,” said Evan Hart, who manages the store along with his partner, Stephen Laster, and is the stepson of the current owner, Jim Scoggins. “It’s bigger than my family and us. This belongs to the community.”

The latest incarnation of the hardware store began when Jim Scoggins acquired the hardware store from his parents, Jack and Voncile Scoggins. The family also owned two bars, a motel and a restaurant in Ouray before taking on the hardware store.

Jack’s younger brother, Ray, originally started the hardware store and sold it to John and Lou Hart – no relation to Evan – who operated it and later sold it back to the Scoggins family when Jack bought it in the 1980s.

Jim Scoggins, who still lives in Ouray with his wife, Brenda Fay Hart, remembers his parents buying the hardware store when it was in the old bank building and deciding to construct a new home for it in its current location.

Jack and Voncile finished the project in 1990 and moved into the upstairs apartment in 1990. They made sure to seal every nook and cranny, given the situation with the squirrels breaking into the old building to eat the dog food they sold.

Many locals will remember his parents – his dad, a happygo- lucky type who liked to have drinks with the miners long after he stopped owning a bar, and his mom, who had a dog named Bear that frequented the hardware store.

The couple was used to having miners pay off their bills at their previous businesses with crystals they dug from deep underground. It was no different at the hardware store, where Jim remembers his dad once letting a few guys take tools they needed and come back later and pay when they could. He trusted people and enjoyed the customers.

“When my dad was here, he used to sit in the front entryway and talk to people when they came through,” said Jim, who is now 73.

Ridgway Hardware has been in the hands of the Scoggins family for most of its four decades.

About five years ago, Jim Scoggins needed new store managers, and asked Evan Hart and Laster to relocate from their home in Texas to assume the day-to-day operations of the shop. While both had backgrounds in customer service, neither had run a hardware store before.

It took Hart and Laster a couple of years to get their feet under them. Laster is now a goto resource for plumbing, while Hart takes the lead on unloading supply trucks.

“They took over and they’ve done an excellent job,” said Jim Scoggins. “I’m really proud of them.”

For much of its history Ridgway Hardware catered primarily to ranchers and contractors. Hart and Laster thought it important to reach a broader base of people, including do-it-yourselfers seeking to tackle home projects. They added housewares and cleaning products. Responding to customers’ wishes, they also reopened the store on Sunday after it had been closed for many years that day of the week. Last year the store added truck and trailer rental services through U-Haul.

Each of the employees specializes in certain areas — from automotive and plumbing to electrical and construction — to try to meet customers’ needs.

For Hart, it’s all about making personal connections and having the greatest impact possible on the community.

Ridgway Hardware will mark its 40th anniversary with a June 14 celebration at the store at 276 S. Lena St.