David and Cathy Barlett sell animal feed, carpeting, tile, building supplies, coal and quite a few

David and Cathy Barlett sell animal feed, carpeting, tile, building supplies, coal and quite a few other things.
"It's an odd combination, but it works out well," David Barlett said. "We only get two or three customers a day for floor covering, and we'd just go buggy sitting around here. But then we get a lot of people coming in for feed, and garden seeds and fertilizer," he said.
The Barletts own Hubbard Coal & amp; Supply and Country Carpets.
The couple opened a carpet business in 1978. As their need for space grew, they bought Hubbard Coal & amp; Supply in 1999 and merged the two businesses. They soon found they had a lot to learn.
"We had to learn all about feed and how much the different animals are going to eat and how long the feed will keep. We had bred dogs for a while and had animals, but that was about it, so it was pretty much a learning experience. We just learned as we went, asked what our customers wanted, and that's what we brought in," Barlett said.
Mix of inventory
Inside the 105-year-old store, carpet and tile samples rest next to sacks of chicken feed and bins of vegetable seeds. Piles of gravel and coal and bales of straw sit outside.
The Barletts sell a full line of animal feed, including parrot and cockatiel, llama, horse, pig and rabbit food. They also carry building materials and aggregates such as sand, gravel, concrete and plaster supplies. Other items include mulch, straw, garden seeds, bulk wheat, cracked corn, rat poison, animal cages and traps. And they still sell coal, as the store did when it first opened in 1898.
"People use it for hunting cabins, garages -- use it to supplement wood in a woodburner. I don't think there are too many people heating their houses with it anymore," Barlett said.
Original floor
The rustic store's original wood floor is patched in places with pieces of metal, a license plate and a tin Gold Medal flour sign. High shelves line the store's walls, stacked with antique dishes, tins, cookie jars and kitchen utensils.
They plan to start selling antiques eventually.
The Barletts also have the store's original grain scale and a working Buffalo coal scale on display.
The Barletts said they plan to restore the building, keeping as much of it intact as possible.