Let's Get Acquainted at Lincoln Hardware ~ Mutty & Jack
The story of Lincoln Hardware & Supply was a fifty-two-year partnership of brothers, Mathias "Mutty" and Jack Weiner, who were born in Holyoke.
Jack and Mutty Weiner relocated with their family to the Bronx, New York, at an early age and were educated in the New York Public School System. Jack Weiner worked for the New York Transit Authority and was one of the founders of the Transit Workers Union. He served in the Army Air Corp. with the third echelon in the Battle of Normandy.
After the war, the brothers returned to Holyoke, founded Lincoln Hardware and Supply, which operated at 409 Main Street in the Crosby Block. They opened their store on January 31, 1946, becoming the eleventh hardware store in Holyoke.
This location had been the home of The Crosby Hardware Store from 1894 to 1925, and Max Epstein's paints, later renamed Holyoke Paint and Wallpaper, from 1929 to 1945. Barger furniture operated in 1928, and Price & Lee directories show the space as vacant in 1926 and 1927.
Lincoln Hardware and Supply carried a variety of hardware and home supplies, including tools, paints, plumbing, electrical, and heating parts and supplies, metal ceilings, toilet seats, floor coverings, pressure cookers, window shades, stove pipes, and sundry housewares. Plenty of merchandise was packed into the store space. In time, rug cleaning equipment rentals and window and screen repairs were added to its services.
Mutty and Jack Weiner continued in business until 1996. The company withstood the evolution of the big box hardware stores of the mid-1980s.
An inventory reduction sale was advertised in October 1996, followed by a public auction of the remaining fixtures and inventory held on December 12, 1996. Except for three years in the mid-1920s, three stores at 409 Main Street had served their customers with paints and/or hardware supplies for almost 100 years.
When Lincoln Hardware & Supply Company closed its doors after 52 years, Jack Weiner was 83, and his younger brother Mathias was 76.
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; publication dates and pages are shown.
Price & Lee City Directories, Holyoke, Massachusetts, Holyoke Public Library.
MACRIS: Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System
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