Hardware Display

Among the miscellaneous items is a pancake griddle, like you used on a wood cook stove, which was made at the Novelty Iron Works. Twelve men worked there on Calhoun Street, north of the railroad tracks at Goold Park. They stamped their stuff “Morris Iron Works” and made plow seats, castings, and different things needed at local farms and industries. They also made the wagon wheel soaker and the heat register cover housed here in the shed display.

The corner unit was made out of the doors from the Page Jewelry Store. W.F. Page open this store in 1913 at 308 Liberty Street, where Harrington Jewelry is today. F.W. Young left the business in 1922. Theses doors were probably removed in 1970 when Delmar Hancock bought the store. They were part of an upstairs office. This was made as a curio cabinet.

In 1906 Matteson Hardware was built at the corner of Liberty and Jackson Street in Morris as part of the Collins Building.  It dominated that iconic location for 70 years until 1977 when it moved to the current Ace Hardware location at the north end of Liberty Street.  Matteson’s was an old fashioned place, the walls were lined with wooden drawer boxes, and grass seed was measured out onto an old Fairbanks scale. In this display is the original account book, kept by Price Matteson and preserved in a fine handmade wooden display box – the first entry is dated October 1, 1906.  As well as later receipts from the 1930s and 1940s,  the metal “We Sell Everything in Hardware” sign, an empty can of Beat Sall Drain Pipe Cleaner, because Gerry Matteson bought the patent for it in the 1960s, a couple of those drawer cabinets, and yes! The old Fairbanks scale!