After 110 years and three generations operating Taylor's Hardware, the store in Pickford will close for a final time.

Marcia and Dick Taylor are in the closeout phase of selling the stock and building, as they are retiring.

They look forward to spending more time with their son, Michael, and grandchildren, who are avid skiers. Mr. Taylor is the director of National Ski Patrol at Boyne Highlands in the Lower Peninsula.

The first store was located where the Pickford Medical Clinic is now, and it was destroyed by fire. Fred Taylor, Dick's grandfather, rebuilt the store at the present location in 1915.

It was named Taylor Hardware and Undertaking. He hired Jack Quinnell to build the caskets, and Mr. Quinnell stayed there with Fred until 1934, when Mr. Quinnell went on his own. Fred died in 1944, when Aldren, Dick's father, bought it from the estate. In 1959, the store changed to Coast to Coast. Aldren Taylor had a competitor across the street, another hardware store owned by Clifford "Rube" Waybrant, which closed in 1980. In June 1980, Dick's father passed away and Marcia and her friend, Imojean Schultz, reopened the store, while Dick was supervising a plant in St. Ignace. By January, the plant moved to Tennessee, enabling Dick and Marcia to purchase the hardware store from Dick's mother. The store's name changed when Coast to Coast dissolved in 2000, to True Value Hardware.

Above: Sixth grade students from Pickford, Ojibway Charter School, Cedarville, and Brimley spent two days at camp May 8 and May 9, at Northwoods near Cedarville. Pictured (in no particular order) are Whitney Robins, Tyler Thompson, Kassie Ellis, Nick Ellis, Sam Eberts, Richard Lee, Ojibway Charter Schools sixth grade teacher Nathan Gregg, Pickford School counselor Cory Nagel, Scott Fisher, Madi Kruger, Anna Sherman, Jonathan Kamper, Treavor Bowen, Jocelyn Preville, and Cassie Kopitz. Dick's mother was a Patrick from Cedarville. They still have the old wicker buggy that his mother had when he was small. Mrs. Taylor pushed little Michael in it in the Pickford Centennial Parade years ago.

Upon retirement, they plan to unpack some of their boxes that have been set aside for years, and decide what to do with them. Dick plans on keeping his small business as a locksmith.

Above: Members of the Pickford Community Wellspring Board of Directors awarded a $300 grant to the Pickford Schools Music Department. Holding the check are school Music Director Megan Miller (left) and DiAnn Firack. Also pictured are (from left) Sarah Morrison, Jan Johnson, Joan Wahl, Kristin Taylor; (back) Roger Morrison, Keith Krahnke, and Melanie Greenfield. Elementary school musicians performed a spring concert May 7, with the middle school through high school bands performing May 8 at Pickford High. (Photograph courtesy of David Firack) John Clawson is representing Pickford, the only driver from our town at the Kinross International Speedway. He started the season with a four-cylinder car and surprised us this weekend with a Factory Stock #69 orange car. Keep up the good work, John.

MaryAnn Pierce reports that she is a grandmother once again. Carissa Lynn Cottle, the fifth daughter of Nikki and Brent Cottle, was born May 12, 2008, at 10:28 p.m. at War Memorial Hospital. Her birth announcement was published in The St. Ignace News June 5.

At right: Marcia and Dick Taylor, co-owners of Taylor's True Value Hardware Store in Pickford.