A man walked into the Sharon Speedway wearing a DeVore's Hardware T-shirt when he was approached by a Mars resident. "I know where that is," the Mars native said. "That's in the center of town." For 100 years, Devore Hardware has been a staple in the center of downtown Monongahela. "It's been here so long it's just become a landmark in the city," said Don DeVore, co-owner of the hardware store. DeVore's was started by W.J. DeVore, Don's great-great grandfather in 1903. The store was originally located at Second and Main streets. The city actually had five hardware stores at the time and W.J. DeVore started the hardware store as an investment. His son, H.C. Devore, ran the business on a daily basis. DeVore's moved to its current location at 437 West Main St. in 1906. Benjamin DeVore bought the store from his father in 1931. George DeVore remembers leaving the junior high school as a youth and walking the block to the store to work. "I came in the store and did various chores," George DeVore, now 77, recalled. "I've been here ever since." He did take two breaks from his service to the hardware store, to serve his country first in World War II and later in Korea. George DeVore took over the business in 1953. He gave the company to his two sons, Don and William, as well as his daughter, Nancy Jane, in the mid-1990s. Don DeVore runs the daily operations. Still, George DeVore can be found working in the family store every day. He has a disdain for retirement. "How much TV can you watch or how many times can you cut the grass?" George DeVore asks with his trademark beaming smile. "And it doesn't hurt me a bit to work." George DeVore is very diplomatic about his work, saying his most memorable day over the past six-and-a-half decades has been "any day I work here." "Everyone who walks through that door is memorable," George DeVore said. People of all walks of life invariably need something from their neighborhood hardware store. The DeVores seem to know everyone by name, from man or woman down the street to a visiting general. Don DeVore recalled when then-U.S. Army Chief of Staff Carl Vuono - who was visiting his mother in Monongahela - walked in to his store with a plumbing problem. "It was right before the Persian Gulf War and there we are, he and I, fixing his mother's toilet in her home," Don DeVore recalled. Bay windows outside the store give a sample of some of the products to be found inside. Stepping into DeVore's hardware is like stepping back in time. To the left as customers enter is the familiar, long counter. Small brown boxes neatly stored on the shelves above the counter contain various screws, nuts and bolts. On the counter is a scale George DeVore recalls taking out of the box when his father bought it in 1936. It is still in use. The modern cash register almost looks out of place. The old hand crank cash register is in the basement. Above the large paint department on the opposite side of the store are shovels and rakes hanging on the wall. There are fan belts hanging neatly on the back wall of the store. There's a key cutting center in the midst of piping and plumbing. And there are pots and pans, coffee makers, chains and fans. "It's what a hardware store is supposed to be," George DeVore said. "We have something the modern merchandisers don't have. We have service and we have product knowledge, which is rather unique in this day and age." There is everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. Actually, they have that too. "Laundry tubs, and toilets and sinks - you name it, we have it," Don DeVore said.

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