An article written in about 2002
Stepping in Style
Take a good look at this old photo of Hamilton’s Shoe
Store. The name of the building proudly
adorns a rooftop attachment with ornate splendor. It‘s easy to envision the
removal of that adornment either when it became unstable or when the
building name was changed but what about the steps? That building doesn’t have
stairs now. What happened? Did the level of the street change? Are there old steps buried under the
sidewalks? Nope, nothing as easy as that.
The original Baldwin Block Building, now the Ebenezer Oil
Building, had stores on the first level and a door leading to the upper level
theater with a stage and auditorium seating. The back of the building came down
decades ago and the rest was transformed into offices. The corner store was a
bank, then the Newhouse Shoe Store, and finally Hamilton’s.
Early in the 1900s, theatergoers and customers used the
stairs but those stairs also attracted unemployed people who would sit and while away the
time, interfering with foot traffic. The landlord responded to the merchants’
needs by bringing their floors to street level. Evidence is behind the basement
door at Hamilton’s. Like a flood water level recorded for posterity, this wall
sports white paint showing where the first floor level once was and no paint
where the wall was originally in the basement.
Workers detached the floor from the building, cut the steel
supports in the basement and lowered the floor. The ceilings and windows were
once reasonably placed but, with the floor lowered several inches, the windows
are now so high that anyone would need a ladder to look out. A drop ceiling was
installed but there’s plenty of headroom left.
Amazingly, all the work was done around scheduled business.
Stores didn’t close for even one day because of the reconstruction. At
Hamilton’s, the customer was always right and the store was always open. Now,
that’s extreme service and a legacy that Rich Shear tries to live up to.
Rich followed his father into the business. Dick Shear could have gone to Colgate or
Alfred U with a free ride courtesy of his football skills but his dad died when
there were still two kids at home so Dick took a job at what he called the
Newhouse Shoehouse to help support his younger brother and mother. The elder Mrs. Shear was a hard-working,
German person who was up and baking long before most others in Wellsville
stirred. Every morning by six, she had a
smile on her face and finished pies on their way to Scoville Brown Grocery.
In 1928, Newhouse sold the shoe business to William Hamilton
for $2,200. Mr. Hamilton changed the
name of the store but kept young Dick Shear.
Dick was the people-person at Hamilton’s and William provided the
capital. Dick Shear wore out shoe
leather and treads as he learned and changed the business.
Bach then, the local businesses bustled.
In the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s and even into the
early ‘60s, people bought locally.
Yes,
cars became common over those decades but traveling to purchase things didn’t.
The Sears catalog was full of great stuff but if you really wanted shoes that
fit, you went to a pro.
At almost every
shoe store, both feet were always carefully measured and, for several years, an
x-ray machine was used to give the inside picture of the fit.
During the time that he was in charge of making sure that
people had comfortable shoes, Dick Shear developed a method of creating felt
pads to customize shoes. He knew that
people don’t have perfectly matched feet and that most people needed
modifications glued into one shoe or the other.
He also learned to use a set of antique stretchers to customize
shoes. It’s uncommon to find stretchers
like these in use anymore. The
stretchers can help get a new pair of shoes “broken in,” preventing blisters and adding comfort. Rich Shear sees the stretchers and the
custom-fit pads as components of a customer-service ideal that he strives
for.
Dick Shear brought service to his customers even if they
didn’t come to the store. He would send
out notices of his schedule and then take a car full of shoes to a room at the
Sherwood Hotel in Hornell, the Olean House, or hotels in Coudersport or
Smethport. During the day, people tried
on what he had and if they needed a larger or smaller size or a different
color, they came back in the late afternoon when someone from the store brought
out the needed items. The service,
offered twice a year for over twenty years, faded away as hotels closed and
customers became more mobile.
Rich has worked at Hamilton’s since 1967 when he started
learning to make pads and fit shoes while still in college. Following his Dad’s example on a smaller
scale, Rich, when asked, takes shoes to customers at nursing homes. He also has fourteen drawers full of catalogs
in the back of the store so, if a customer doesn’t find the right footwear in
one the 3,000 shoeboxes covering the walls, Rich will custom order the right
shoe.
Footwear has changed over the decades. One big thing is that it is harder now to
predict how a shoe will fit. Shoes were
made in the United States when Rich started (women’s shoes in St. Louis and
men’s throughout New England) and there were standards – a size six was pretty
much the same for any company.
Now shoes are made in Asia and South America with sizing
that varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.
The variety in sizing makes measuring, fitting and modifying important,
but hard to find, services.
There’s been a big shift in style. Years ago, many shoes were ordered in narrow
sizes. “We would order women’s dress
shoes in quadruple A. Have feet changed
in one generation? No. Women just jammed their feet into these
narrow things. They didn’t ruin their
feet but they were uncomfortable for years.
Now there is more acceptance of the rounded-toe, Euro Style and more
concern for comfort.”
Another shift is that athletic wear, once a small section in
the store, now commands nearly a full
wall. Rich offers his experience as a
runner to help other athletes. He
considers the person’s biokinetics, analyzing how the runner moves and helping
to select the best shoe to address a problem.
Hamilton’s has always tried to provide mid to high quality
footwear from a variety of manufacturers while giving attentive service to
their clients. Early in our lives as
Wellsville residents, my husband gave Hamilton’s a try. City and mall shoe stores often told him that
they didn’t carry his size but Hamilton’s made special orders.
Among Rick Hardman's favorite small town memories is the
day that he was pumping gas when someone yelled out to him, “Hey, Rick, your
shoes are in!”
Events like that makes
small towns feel like home. Hamilton’s
has been a part of this small town for 74 years.