New life for a rambling, 125-year-old hardscrabble hardware store
âBoy, this community relies on usâ
By Thomas Farragher Globe Columnist,Updated March 13, 2021, 8:13 a.m.
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Art LaPlante and Mark Royer own the E.M. Brown & Son, Inc. hardware store that is celebrating its 125-year-anniversary. LaPlante paused to reflect in the upstairs retail area.Lane Turner/Globe Staff
BARTON, Vt. â Itâs a rambling old place, a beloved five-story, pale-blue clapboard building with icicles hanging from one roof and an old weathervane at the peak of another that sits just above a sign that reads: âEst. 1896.â
There are snow shovels just outside the front door next to a small parade of forest-green wheelbarrows here at the corner of Water and Main streets.