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Oil Lamps to Gas-Powered Fridges: 'Low-Tech Superstore' Sees Boom Since Sept. 11

By Amy Sancetta Associated Press Writer Published: Dec 8, 2001

KIDRON, Ohio (AP) - When the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 occurred, the first thing that came to mind for Galen Lehman was, "Thank God I'm here." "Here" meant the relative safety of this tiny farming community in the heart of central Ohio's Amish country. Lehman is vice president of a vast hardware store that his father started 45 years ago and still bears the family name.

Opened by Jay Lehman in 1955 as a non-electrical hardware store geared toward the Amish, Lehman's now sells its vast stocks of unusual products by catalogue and on the Web across the United States and to 200 countries around the world.

Gas-powered refrigerators and wood stoves make up the base of the company's business, but the expansive store sells everything from butter churns to windmills.

"We're sort of a low-tech super store," explains Glenda Lehman Ervin, Galen's sister, the marketing director.

As the weeks passed following Sept. 11, Galen Lehman came to realize just how much the attacks would affect the country, as well as the family business.

Lehman's mail order business shot up 25 percent in October from a year ago, with sales skyrocketing for oil lamps (up 74 percent); water filters and hand pumps (up 146 percent); gristmills (up 97 percent); butchering supplies (up 98 percent); and how-to books (up 76 percent).

"We sell products that allow people to be self-sufficient," explains Lehman.

Lehman's mail-order shoppers seem to be people who have simple lifestyles as well as those concerned about emergencies.

"Customers we hadn't seen hide nor hair of since Y2K have been calling up with new orders," Lehman says.

Emergency shopping is not new to Lehman's.

The hardware found its foothold beyond the Amish community during the energy crisis of the mid-1970s. When other companies were scrambling to stock wood stoves to sell to Americans concerned about being left without power, Lehman's had an abundance of the items that it had regularly sold to the Amish and to missionaries.

Business again spiked during the run-up to Jan. 1, 2000, when Americans feared a loss of utility services. Last summer's energy shortage in California brought a run on oil lamps and lanterns.

The attacks of Sept. 11 seem to have set the same type of shopping into motion.

"It seems clear to me," says Lehman, "that people are trying to prepare for an uncertain future."

AP-ES-12-08-01 1216EST

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

Answers

online catalogue:

www.lehmans.com

Link

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

this link works:

Lehman's Nonelectric Catalogue

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

Meemur,

Thanks for the link! They've a nice inventory - now if their prices were a bit more affordable...

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

I think their prices are fine -- you have to go there, tho. Other places are less expensive, but you have to pay postage. We had a link up recently for a general store in Cumberland or was it the Cumberland General Store? My mind goth.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001