Three generations of Diggles celebrate the family’s operation of the Eureka Ace Hardware. Left to right, Dave, Dan, and 93-year-old Ed. Photo provided by Dan Diggle.

Dave and Dan Diggle, father and son, recently bought the Eureka Ace Hardware store from the Bowald family. At an April meeting of the Eureka Rotary, Dave told the story of how they came to be involved with the store.

Dave said he was from Gridley where his dad had an auto parts store. Right after Christmas every year they had to take inventory. They didn’t have bar codes or hand-held gadgets to do the job. They had a clip board and an inventory list. Every item had to be accounted for.

His dad would invariably ask him, “Dave, what are you going to be doing after Christmas?” And he knew what he would be doing.

Since he was the boss’ son, he got the dirtiest jobs, like being sent into the back store-room where they kept all the mufflers and tail pipes. It was the worst possible job in the inventory process.

When he was a freshman in high school, his dad asked him, “Dave, what do you want to do with your life?” He expected Dave to say he wanted to run an auto parts store, but Dave said, “I want to have a job like Mr. Froelich has.” And true to his word, he became a funeral director. By the time he retired after 36 years, he had funeral homes in several towns.

Dave sold his business a few years ago. His son Dan was working for a major sporting goods company. Dave asked Dan if he thought they could make a go of it if they bought the Ace Hardware store in Eureka. Bill Bowald (the former owner) had died, and the family was selling the business.

ACE dealers are independents, not franchises. Each owner owns his business, but he has the purchasing power of the large Ace Corporation.

An interesting fact they learned when they investigated the business is that 61% of the customers are women. And he found out that some women prefer a hardware store to a dress shop. Since customer satisfaction is very important to success, he and Dan work hard at making the store attractive and useful to women, as well as men.

Dan’s hobby is bass fishing. He recently took his tackle over to Eureka Lake and caught a 2 lb. bass just walking along the bank. Now they’re looking into carrying some basics for fishermen. Since Ace doesn’t carry sports equipment, they have to find sporting goods wholesaler they can work with.

They have erected a large greenhouse to contain the plants they will be selling. Some plants are already in.

The store is currently open from 7:30 – 7:00 Monday – Friday and 7:30 – 5 on Saturday. The ad in the newspapers say 8 – 8 weekdays. It will eventually be changed to match the actual hours of operation.

Ace was begun in 1924 when a few men went into partnership to purchase and resell a big lot of sponges. They didn’t have a name, but they saw a truck driving by the window with the name ACE, and after some thought, they decided it was a pretty good name. Currently there are 4700 stores worldwide.

The Diggles invite comments and suggestions and hope everyone will continue to “Shop Local.”