FERGUS – A lot happens and changes in a town over 100 years, but in Fergus one fixture has been a family’s lumber business.
What is now Dixon Home Hardware, in its fourth-generation of the same family ownership, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this summer.
The business in its current form is hard to miss as a fairly new building in a large lot along Highway 6. It wasn’t always at this location, under the Home Hardware banner or even originally in Fergus.
“It actually started as a small lumberyard in Arthur in a planing mill in 1923,” explained Jason Dixon, current co-owner of Dixon Home Hardware with his brother Jeff for the past 12 years.
It was so long ago, Dixon isn’t even sure why exactly his great-grandfather Walter got into the business to begin with and could only speculate there being a history of woodworking on that side of his family.
“My grandpa Merlin, he was always building things and woodworking and stuff like that and that came from when he was a kid,” Dixon said. “I kind of put two and two together but I don’t know.”
The business came to Fergus in 1933 with an expansion of a small millwork shop in Fergus. Ten years after that, Merlin joined his father at the original Fergus shop on St. Patrick Street East.
Dixon’s dad Jim was the next generation to join in 1961 and the shop would move to its current Highway 6 location in 1977, expanding over the years.
At one time the lumber business was under the Home Care buying group name which later became Timber Mart. In 2004 it became a Home Hardware.
“(Timber Mart) had a lot of different suppliers whereas Home Hardware is kind of its own entity, they have an incredible hardware distribution system over there in St. Jacobs, they just make it easier for us to run our business,” Dixon said.
Although Dixon has not been around for the whole 100 years, he has seen a lot of changes and challenges in the industry from digitization, recessions and a global pandemic. But what’s remained fairly consistent, and what Dixon pointed to as a possible reason for the business’ longevity, is good customers and staff.
“You can have the best prices and a shiny store and everything, but if nobody is coming here to buy, you’re not going to make it one year, let alone 100,” Dixon said.
Over the years there’s been a lot of long-term staff who have worked there for decades. As cliché as he finds it, Dixon said staff is considered family.
This is something floor manager Matt Johnston backed up in an interview.
When asked about favourite memories, he recalled times outside of work when staff would get together like seeing fireworks at Jim Dixon’s cottage on Belwood Lake.
“I always get asked if I’m one of the sons, no I’ve just been here forever,” Johnston said.
Johnston first started 23 years ago as a 17-year-old co-op student and has worked just about every position there is at the store.
“They’re geared towards the community and customer service … they just seem to be a fixture and everyone knows the Dixons,” Johnston said on why he thinks the business has lasted so long.
With four generations having a hand in the business, Dixon acknowledged it isn’t set in stone if either his or Jeff’s sons — who have worked in the store as teenagers — will take the reins eventually.
Dixon said he and Jeff both were similar, having worked there as teenagers and then doing their “own thing” before eventually finding their way back to the family business.
“I didn’t know I had an interest in the business when I was 15 years old, you don’t know until you learn about the work world,” Dixon said. “I imagine our kids are in the same boat right now.”
Dixon is happy his father Jim got to see the store reach the level it is now before he died in 2022, but wonders what his grandfather and great-grandfather would think.
“Knowing what they did 100 years ago is still thriving and serving the community, I think they’d be kind of in awe over that,” Dixon said.
