Past Farm Store Chains

The Tractor Supply Posts got me thinking about this. In my area of Wisconsin we covered good by Farm & Fleet and Fleet Farm with a couple Tractor Supplies way off in distance. But to get to the point we used to have Big Bear and Central Tractor as options also. I just wondering if either of them chains still in operation somewhere.
 
Big Bear has been gone for better than two decades and Fleet Farm aint what she used to be.
 
We havent ever had a Farm Fleet store, but one of the nearby farms equipment dealerships is a Farm Fleet dealer. They send out a thick catalog every year of all the items that Farm Fleet carries. And every quarter a flyer is sent out offering specials , based on seasonal marketing. I have purchased several Farm Fleet items over the years, never been disappointed. Dealership only stock a few items, but can have large items within 2-4 days.
 
There was a central tractor in Salem IN that had all sorts of tractor parts. Local we had Big Blue stores but they sold out to orschelens. Orshelens got ran out of their lease so a sporting store could go in, but they went bankrupt.
 
Central Tractor was a good farm store in my area,but didn't change its business model to go with the changing times and changes in farming like TSC apparently did.
 
Quality Farm and Fleet. They took over the Central Tractor stores around here and ran them even further into the ground before finally going out of business for good.

If you think TSC is bad, Quality was much much worse. They did not restock the store unless they could order in enough to fill a 53' van trailer. So at any given time half the shelves in the store sat empty.

They had little if anything for farms OR fleets.
 
I worked for CT nearly all of the 1990's. I can tell you that by the time the Country General and Quality days came along the
operation was experiencing extreme financial pressure. To the point where if you needed to order a toolbox or a lawn mower part
you could not tell when you might receive it. Got to the point where you had to call the vendor to know if they would ship a
product. Even calling was not foolproof as after a short while the vendor would not tell a store employee any status. But that
did not stop some from telling a CT store employee that your account with them was 90 DAYS PAST DUE! Even before those days there
were many problems. Management would give overly optimistic arrival times on regularly shipped items and have people PO'd when
those times failed to materialized. During those days the quality on a lot of farm related items was not equal to OEM which left
people dissatisfied. Jobs were anything but plentiful where I live but I finally got tired of being chewed out for the failings of
others and left.
 
Bankrupt? Source?
Tractor Supply bought Orscheln, a closely held locally-owned company.
Orscheln had 320 stores across the lower midwest and mid-south.
 
What we had in N.H. were feed and farm supply stores.Merrimac Farmers Exchange was the statewide chain.Some,if not all had grain elevators.We had one here in town,and that one had an elevator.The elevator was torn down in the late 60's,and the store closed up in the early 80's.Ours was also a lumberyard,and my dad built a half dozen houses out of that store.The only machinery type stuff I remember being sold there were Ariens snowblowers,Philidalphia Panzer lawnmowera,Merry Tiller garden tillers,and Knipco space heaters.The logo was a round sign with the profile of an indians head,with a couple of feathers.
 
We had Wicks Big Acer stores in my area back in the sixties and seventies before they went Belly up. They brought up small town elevators and were operated as such along with a farm store in the office area. I don't think they had much over 12 locations. I worked at one for a year in 71.

I guessing I have about 8 TSCs within 20 miles of my house, 4 Quality Farm stores. But I will drive the 25 miles to Rural King if I'm buying much more than a small item.
 
Quality Farm and Fleet and Central Tractor decided to
merger. Quality did not take over Central, was a merger.
And corperate decided to get rid of the best parts of both
stores and decided to keep the worst parts. Poor management
was their downfall. I knew months before the general
population knew anything about what was going to happen.
Late wife was in management at Central so She did get a lot
of information the general public never did get. After
destroying both companys with poor management desisions the
company had to file bankruptcy but before that happened the
owners of Central parts split off their used parts
bussibess so it was not a part of the bankruptcy. So it was
safe for a while. I do not know if it is still in operation
or not. When it cot to the bankrupcy court that is where
everything fell apart.The orignal owners of Central tractor
tried to buy it back out of the bankruptcy but could only
come up a few thousand dollars short of what TSC offered
anf the judge decided those few creditors was worth more
than the jobs of all emplowes and the value to the
customers were worth so the Judge sold it to TSC. My late
Wife was in manergy training for Central when they merged
and had not yet got the final papoer work done to become a
full manager and she was to be asigned a manager position
that would have ment we would have been moving from my farm
here in Ohio to Georgia. Lucky for us that final paper work
had not been completed. The CT store she was second in
management was 47 mile from so when things got worse she
was able to transfer to Q & F that was 8 mile from home..
She new what was comming so she had got an aplication from
Lowes and filled it out but had not turned it in as it
looked at that tile like CT and Q & F might survive. When
things got close and the other employes had no idea they
were about to loose their jobs she got out that aplication
and just changed the date on it and turned it in. Within
too days She was working For Lowes in a department manager
position and was with Lowes for 15 years untill She passed
away from a heart atack in March of 2015.
So I do know more of what went on than the general public
will ever know. The bankruptcy court is why we no longer
have a CT or Q & F.Not market conditions. In Her training
position she was sent to Georga to help hire employs for
some new stores they were getting ready to open but neve
did.
 
When we first moved to St Cloud MN there was a Big Bear that we shopped at a lot, it was a good store. It was bought out by CT Farm & Country, and then closed.
 
The one constant all those years was poor management. Elliot Brody was a pretty decent guy but could never figure out the next step going from a parts yard that also offered imported original equipment replacement items such as exhaust manifolds to being a department store operation. Then as they took in more outside money the people calling the shots wanted to go head to head with Walmart. That takes a lot of capital of which CT never was in the same galaxy as Walmart. Then they got obsessed with quick turns on merchandise like Walmart does. The result of that was the product line becoming as shallow as a mud puddle. There was little to distinguish Quality from any other retailer. They soon could not pay their bills and the end was in sight. As to waiting so the orders filled a 53 foot trailer that is not true. During the glory days of the early 1990's each store in New York received at least a partial shipment of stock per week from the main warehouse. One truck would have orders for 2 or 3 stores and if your store was down the line you called the earlier stores in the route for transfers. Those trucks would hit Batavia and Geneseo before they would hit the Finger Lakes locations. During the busy season early in spring each store would get one full trailer from a supplier such as Noma (Dynamark).
 
In the 70's we had Wheelers PSI and TSC I loved going to the PSI store with dad. They had a huge toy selection. Think they carried every toy Ertl made.

PSI got bought out by Orschelns. The Wheelers store turned into Town and Country, then turned to Country General then Quality Farm and Fleet then turned into Orschelns.

There is a new store popping up called Bomgaars
 
If you are talking Central and Quality Farm they never tried
rebranding untill they closed the doors for one last time.
 

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