DUANE
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Duane's take
This one comes straight from the official marker, and I'm gonna tell it to you the way it deserves to be told. Now, most hardware stores, they sell nails and hinges and maybe a good length of rope. But in 1890, when J.
F. Croley purchased the Croley Hardware Company, he had a somewhat broader vision of what a hardware store could do for a community. Somewhere alongside the nuts and bolts, he began an undertaking business, right there as part of the hardware store services.
You think about that a minute. You could walk in for a box of tacks and walk out with funeral arrangements. That's a full-service establishment if I've ever heard of one.
Now, the business kept growing. By 1920, a partnership was formed to run things, and then in 1933, the Croley Burial Association came into being. That name meant something.
It meant the community had a formal institution, not just a sideline operation tucked between the saw blades and the paint cans. Then came the next chapter, and it had a new name attached to it. Croley Cook, nephew of J.
F. Croley himself, built a brand new funeral home in 1946 and 1947. A proper structure, purpose-built, including a chapel that could seat two hundred people.
Two hundred. That's not a room, that's a congregation. The place was made to hold grief and memory at scale.
And the story didn't stop there. In 1979, a larger chapel was built, and the facilities were renovated. Generation after generation, the Croley name kept showing up, kept serving.
From a hardware counter in 1890 all the way forward, this community never had to look very far to find someone who'd be there when it mattered most.
What the marker says
J. F. Croley purchased the Croley Hardware Company in 1890 and began an undertaking business as part of the hardware store services. In 1920 a partnership was formed to run the business, and in 1933 the Croley Burial Association was formed. Croley Cook, nephew of J. F. Croley, built a new funeral home in 1946-47. The structure included a chapel with a seating capacity for 200 people. In 1979 a larger chapel was built, and the facilities were renovated. The company continues to serve the community. (1997)