The History of Van Tuyl & Fairbank Hardware

Before Canada became Canada, before Petrolia became an incorporated town, Fairbank Hardware was already doing a brisk business on the muddy main street of this shanty town of oil derricks.

It earns a distinct place in Lambton County's history - for no other family retail business is rooted in the 19th century and continues to greet customers in the 21st century. Opening its doors in 1865, this pre-Confederation family concern is believed to be the oldest independent hardware store in Ontario and possibly all of Canada.

Surviving two world wars, the great depression, numerous recessions and a tidal wave of change in technology is no easy feat. The store has been passed from father to son three times since John Henry Fairbank founded it and these sons have all been named Charles. The current owner is better known as Charlie, and he took over his great-grandfather's store in 1982. There's no mysterious secret to the store's longevity he says. "It just means that for a mere 135 years we've had to continually adapt and change."

Anyone walking into VanTuyl and Fairbank Hardware today is more likely to be struck by what hasn't changed. On the outside, there is clapboard siding, shingled walls and a profusion of wild hollyhocks that have been at the store's alley entrance as long as anyone can remember. Together, they give the air of a bygone era.

If the store's exterior doesn't look like a shiny new Canadian Tire, the impression is even more pronounced inside. In the main office customers pay their bills next to 19th century photograph of an odd looking man standing with two cannons. Beneath the photo someone has written `'VanTuyl and Fairbank Debt Collection Department". Above, there is a sign hand painted by Fred Bicknell. "Use our easy payment plan," it says, "100 per cent down, nothing more to pay." on the far wall is a framed newspaper from 1890 advertising the mortgage sale of a Petrolia refinery. And another wall is adorned with a collection of photos that says "presented to John H. Fairbank by his employees, Christmas 1895."

The plywood floor can't hide the fact it has endured a lot of traffic in work boots. The computer-topped desks are surrounded by old wooden cabinets and shelves stuffed with well-thumbed catalogues of parts dating back to the 1920s. The two doors leading from the main office are clearly from another age - a scant two feet across and only six feet high.

The store is actually an unheated warehouse, or more precisely, a collection of large sheds brought together with roofing. Huge rough timbers support the roof, some are charred from an earlier fire, some are still covered in bark. Various floorings appear in different sections of the store - cement, plywood, wooden plank and in the steel room, it's dirt.

Occasionally the building has flooded. "only when it rained," quips Fairbank. Over the decades the town has literally built up around the store, so the rainwater flowed down into it In recent years the town minimized the elevation problem by providing better drainage.

The product line has not varied much in the last few decades because the four main groups of customers haven't changed. Stock is chosen to address the problems of industries, farmers, general consumers and those who operate the 700 heritage oil wells in the Petrolia area.

The vast majority of customers are decidedly male. Women may have been granted the vote and even pay equity during the store's time but in this store of heavy hardware it remains a man's world.

A SAGA BEGINS

When John Henry Fairbank first built his store in 1865 it was just east of Bear Creek and it originally carried groceries and liquor. Within a decade it carried a great number of high quality items for the Victorian home but it specialized in hardware and oil well supplies.

Producing oil was Fairbank's primary business and it was to become his magnificent obsession. He arrived in Canada as a near penniless American surveyor who had taken a Canadian bride in Niagara Falls. Like thousands in his day, he was lured to oil Springs by wild tales of striking it rich in the oil fields. He established Fairbank Oil Properties in Oil Springs in 1861 and by 1865 had amassed enough money to invest in the store. His oil business was really in its infancy. It would not be until 1890 until he became the largest oil producer in Canada producing 25,000 barrels a year.

Sometime in the early 1870s Fairbank moved his store to the corner of the main street and Station Street. At that time the store was massive, and stretched all the way back to Railroad Street making it the largest hardware store west of Toronto. In 1874 Fairbank acquired a business partner, Benjamin VanTuyl, who actively managed the store. His importance was underlined when the store's name was officially changed to VanTuyl and Fairbank Hardware.

Reaching their customers in the age of horse and wagon was an incredible challenge. The road between Petrolia and oil Springs was so deep in thick mud that it was known to cripple horses. Fairbank concluded that if oil producers could not get to his store he would take his store to them. Using the railway to ship the goods he opened satellite stores in Oil Springs and Bothwell. Dates on when this began and when it ceased are unclear.

The story of the store is interwoven with the epic events of the area and the world. Before the turn of the century the economic foundations of the whole town were beginning to collapse. Booming oil fields were no longer gushing, they slowed to a trickle. Imperial Oil abandoned Petrolia taking its headquarters to Sarnia and the Petrolia Oil Exchange had gone out of business.

Adding to these business woes was the death of VanTuyl in l 900. J.H. Fairbank was 70 by then and VanTuyl had been his friend and valued partner for 26 years. As a measure of respect and gratitude, his name has never been removed from the store.

Without oil to lubricate the local economy the town pinned its hopes on diversifying. one promising business was the Petrolia Wagon Co. Limited. Starting in 1901 it produced sleighs and various horse-drawn wagons including wagon-wheeled ambulances. It grew quickly and for 20 years it was the largest industry in town not related to oil.

The wagon works may have been large but it was forever mired in a financial mess. The owners turned to J.H. Fairbank for help. In a move that would cause the greatest loss in his career, he backed an enormous loan to the company. Fairbank would not live long enough to see the debacle that followed. He died in 1914 and his estate took over the store.

Financially wobbly or not, the wagon works could have never withstood the death blow to come. It was not foreseen that something called a motor vehicle would soon revolutionize transportation and swiftly render wagons obsolete.

When the company failed in 1921 the Fairbank family felt morally or legally obligated to pay out $211,000. The loss was quite devastating and with one stroke of the pen it wiped out almost one third of the family's wealth. This would have implications for the store.

The famous stock market crash of 1929 further diminished the family fortunes. Also, the oil revenue from the area had shrunk. Feeling the need for more money the family sold the principal Fairbank and VanTuyl Hardware store fronting on the main street.

STREAMLINED FOR LEANER TIMES

The remaining portion of the business was contained at the back of the building in the freight sheds. It was here that boxcars of goods had been unloaded from the railway branch line and it's here, just north of the alley, that the store remains.

The store's past helps explain its present and in today's world of superstores and retail chains Van Tuyl and Fairbank is as unique as a thumbprint.

Each generation of Fairbanks has left its own stamp on the store. Charlie Fairbank Sr. had never intended to be involved in the hardware business. Instead, he had studied petroleum engineering at the University of California in the 1920s. He was on his way to a career in South America when the family requested he return to take over the store and the oil property. And he did.

In the 1930s and '40s he shifted the store's focus to water well casing and sold it across the province, later expanding the market to the Maritimes. By the 1960's other larger suppliers muscled in on the market and VanTuyl and Fairbank moved back to general hardware.

Unlike his father, and even his grandfather, J.H. Fairbank, Charlie Fairbank Sr. managed the store on a day-to-day basis departing only when he served as the youngest Liberal member of the provincial parliament from 1938 to 1943. Two loyal employees became almost synonymous with the store. Elizabeth Hoban did the bookkeeping and Bill Hackett kept track of every nut and bolt in the warehouse. Collectively they worked at the store for 90 years.

One of the best remembered stories from the early 1960s is the tale of the Fairbank electric teapot. These round ceramic teapots contained a heating element that would boil water within minutes. It was a sideline business for Fairbank. Petrolia church groups were paid to assembly them and they were carried and distributed through the hardware store.

They proved to be just the thing needed for countless Canadian kitchens and they were so popular that they were to be listed in the Eaton's Christmas catalogue. Everyone was elated.

Soon afterwards a man from the Canadian Standards Association walked into the VanTuyl and Fairbank Hardware to test them. He decided the teapot should be able to boil water effectively for an entire hour. This was impossible. It boiled dry, so he declared the wattage had to be reduced. once this was done the teapot could no longer live up to its claim of boiling water within minutes. And that meant it did not get the necessary approval and without a Canadian Standards Association sticker the teapots could not be carried by Eaton's or anyone else.

There's an epilogue to the tale. Years passed and Fairbank met a retired fellow from the Canadian Standards Association who clearly loved his original teapot. He made it his personal crusade to win the necessary approval. He did not succeed.

To this day, boxes and boxes of teapots without heating elements sit piled beyond the steel room of the store. The original teapot had been sold with a guarantee. If the ceramic broke, the owner just had to send $2 and the heating element back to the store and it would be installed in a new teapot and sent back. Many did. And even now someone will occasionally wander into the store and inquire about them still.

A NEW GENERATION USHERS IN THE MILLENNIUM

Well into his seventies Charlie Fairbank Sr. was still striding off to the store each day. Upon his death in 1982, his son took the helm. Like his great-grandfather, it's the business of producing oil that has really captured his heart. For well over a decade he relied heavily on the capable management of Ron Brand who expanded the market with new lines and new customers.

It was also Brand's unenviable job to oversee the introduction of new technology. The store's financial records had always been handwritten in enormous books which looked like they might have come out of a story by Charles Dickens. Like most businesses, VanTuyl and Fairbank did not find the transition to computers an easy one.

Though Charlie remains the owner, the reins of management were passed to David Taylor in 1998 who now supervises four other staff and guides the company into the new millennium. The store continues to cut steel, thread pipe and offer advice, solutions and products to its customers.

To the amusement of Charlie and the staff, telemarketers sometimes call the store wishing to speak to Mr. VanTuyl.

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- by Patricia McGee Feb. 28, 2000