Lehman's Hardware

Jay Lehman, an area businessman, founded Lehman's Hardware (now called "Lehman's") in 1955 with the intent of selling non-electrical products to the Amish community. He began the business by purchasing a combination hardware store and gasoline filling station that had been in business since 1915.

The store did a modest business, with a mild boost from tourism, until the 1973 oil crisis. As domestic supplies of oil began to dwindle, people began to look for low-tech equipment to help them deal with the shortages. According to Jay Lehman, "The oil embargo put us on the map." The oil crisis secured the store's reputation, with each new disaster or potential disaster bringing in new customers. Other events that increased Lehman's customer base include the Year 2000 problem, the September 11, 2001, attacks, and the northeast blackout of 2003.

As a result of this change, there has been a marked shift in the demographic makeup of Lehman's customers. In the early years, the Amish community accounted for 95 percent of Lehman's sales. As of 2007, it made up between 6 and 8 percent.

Besides the Amish, tourists, and jittery citizens, the store is a resource for homesteaders, missionaries, environmentalists, survivalists, and doctors in developing countries, to purchase items needed for simple living. Lehman's also counts among its customers the American Red Cross and Peace Corps volunteers, and Hollywood set designers also use the store to find historically accurate items for decorating period sets.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported in 2011 that though now in his eighties, Jay Lehman was still serving as chairman of the business and came to the store every day to interact with customers. The business side was now by his son Galen, who started working at the store in his teens and is now retired. Jay Lehman's daughter, Glenda Lehman Ervin, currently serves as the store's Director of Marketing after working many years at a large corporation. Jay Lehman died in July 2020, having continued working at Lehman's with reduced responsibilities until earlier the same year. In Lehman's joined HRM Enterprises, Inc. on February 1, 2021. HRM's family of businesses include Hartville Hardware, Hartville Kitchen Restaurant and Bakery, Hartville Marketplace and Flea Market, The Shops at Hartville Kitchen and Top Advantage Surfaces.

Location

Lehman's is located in Kidron, Ohio, an unincorporated community in Wayne County, Ohio. It is located in a tri-county area of Northeast Ohio that is home to the nation's largest population of Amish, some 56,000 in number. Its location made it a natural place from which to do business with the area's Amish population, and its proximity to U.S. Route 30 has also made it a popular stop among tourists who are visiting Amish Country.

Manufacturer and distributor

As the store did business, it often found it difficult to find suppliers of certain items as manufacturers quit making the obsolete technology or went out of business. This forced Lehman's to look other places to develop new suppliers or become their own supplier.

In the case of cast iron wood-burning parlor stoves, the Amish only accept the product in black, so Lehman's arranges special manufacturer runs, typically buying a three-year supply at a time.

Lehman's also deals in replacement parts for many of their products, tracking them down from individual manufacturers, or at times reverse engineering them. When there is a lack of manufacturers for needed parts, they often obtain the casting parts and hire out the work, or do the manufacturing themselves, frequently without regard to profit.