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Source: Milwaukee Journal SentinelNov.迷你倉 14--This is what a hardware store looks like when it dies.First a banner goes up: "Going out of business." Smaller signs say everything in the store is 20% off. That was around Labor Day. Later, it bumped up to 30%, then 40, then 50 and this week 60%.The shelves and display racks at Robertson Ace Hardware in the heart of Wauwatosa's village are picked over now. The end is imminent, like a person in his final days who has stopped eating.Owner Jeff Rauh said he has noticed that when you drop something, the sound echoes off the emptiness like it never did before. Customers have been scooping up not only his remaining inventory, but the racks that held it.Everything must go, and it must go by Saturday, when the doors are locked and the space ceases to be a hardware store for the first time in 116 years.That's how long the limestone and Cream City brick building has stood at 1417 Underwood Ave. The triangular structure, known as the Dittmar building, fits neatly in a block of the same shape. With its old-world design and three-story octagonal tower, it's really been more of a hardware castle.Another retail store is soon to open here, said Rauh, who will continue to own the building. Until the deal is firm, he didn't want to say what they'll sell, but for those of us who live in the neighborhood it will seem strange that it won't be nuts, bolts, tools, plumbing parts, paint and the million other things you get at a hardware store.Though I have shopped here, I'm as guilty as anyone for the store's demise. Rauh said people are busier now and less inclined to tackle do-it-yourself projects. We buy our light bulbs, motor oil, duct tape and other common items at the grocery store, or we hit the bigplaces like Menards and Home Depot. The long recession didn't help, either."It came down to the slowing of sales," Rauh said, and that includes the commercial customers that have gone under or moved farther out in the suburbs. Rauh ran the store with his seven part-time employees."We have pretty much come to accept it as the changing times. Saturday will be difficult. Sunday, I might be relieved," said Rauh, 49.He has worked at the store for 19 years and bought it in 1999 from his father-in-law, Jim Howard, who owned it since 1962 and retained the well-established name of the Robertson family who took it over in 1921. That's 92 years it's been Robertson Hardware, with the Ace affiliation coming in the 1970s.I'll remember a couple things about the store. You could enter through a back door that took you through a work room before youreached the actual store. And there were always a lot of red Radio Flyer wagons, tricycles, bikes and scooters in the big pict儲存倉re windows, giving the place a retro feel.Rauh took me on a tour of the store this week. Wetalked about the 14-foot ceilings, the ancient hand-operated freight elevator, and light fixtures so old that they used to operate on gas. He pointed out the original maple floor."It still squeaks so I know where everybody is in the store," he said.We talked about how the building had avoided fires and floods all these years, though a woman did accidentally drive her car through the wall a year ago.We walked through the basement, where stock was stored. The shelves are mostly empty now, though I spotted a pail of black chunks and a pink sign saying, "Yes, we have real coal lumps, 50 cents each." The store would put it near the register at Christmastime in case anyone needed to get the attention of a naughty child.This is a store that honors its past. Gold Hammer Awards for 50 years of service hang on the wall to honor Mr. Howard and Ted Christensen, who worked there until he was 80. Rauh has saved the two dinosaur cash registers that eventually were replaced by computers.On display are the old penny gumball dispenser and an antique washing machine you had to rock by hand to agitate the clothes. Government proclamations touting the store's 90th birthday are displayed, and a historical plaque was affixed to the building in 1977.Customer Chris Leffler from the neighborhood told me he has shopped at the store a couple times a week. "I don't know what I'm going to do without this place," he said.And I noticed Mike Eve walking up and down the aisles. This was the Brookfield man's first time at Robertson. He wasn't shopping. He said he just wanted to see the store before it went away.Even when the new retailer opens, Rauh said the store's beautiful ladder wall will stay as a reminder of what came before. It's a long floor-to-ceiling mix of shelves, peg boards, oak cabinets and pigeonholes with one of those sliding ladders to reach everything overhead.Rauh said he might go to 70% off on Saturday, when the store is open from 8 to 5. Leftovers will be donated to Habitat for Humanity. Rauh thinks it will take him all winter to clear the basement of 116 years of hardware store clutter.He said he will miss his customers most of all. He knew many by name and watched their kids grow up."Next Tuesday, I'll have a light bulb go out, and I'll have to go to a hardware store to get one. Then it will hit me for sure."Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or email at jstingl@jrn.comMore Stingl onlineGo to jsonline.com/video to see Jim Stingl's video columns.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Visit the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at .jsonline.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉最平