Another Historic Business Closes

After 125 years – 125 years! – Tattersall Building Supplies in Trenton is closing its retail operation. Next Friday, August 14, will be the last day that the store is open. It saddens us to see such an historic enterprise go away.

In truth, it is just the retail business that is going away. The owners are still going to conduct online tool sales (see http://www.tattersallsinc.com ) and they are going to continue to operate two additional business enterprises, Firehawk Industries, which makes industrial cleaning equipment, and Brutus Rollers LLC, which makes power rollers for tennis court construction and maintenance.

These latter two products are ones with which we have considerable familiarity, because when we began working part-time in our college years we worked in the plant that manufactured them. Firehawk was called Northeast Industries originally, and its roots go back “only” to 1958. Brutus Rollers began at Midland Products in 1954 before moving to Northeast Industries.

While we can take some solace in the fact that these two manufacturing enterprises, each more than 50 years old, are continuing, it is nonetheless disappointing to see the one that was founded in 1884 close its doors.