Axmen.com - A Missoula, MT retailer of home appliances & outdoor products
A Brief History of The Axmen As told by Guy Hanson
It was the spring of 1973, just a short thirty-five years ago, when the Hansons from Ronan moved to Missoula and opened the Axmen. Bud Hanson had always dreamed of doing business outside of the box and so he sold his hardware store, teamed up with his two sons and bought a piece of Missoula. Bud’s approach to business has continued through the third generation and the Axmen is even more unusual today than it was in 1973.
Bud had some novel ideas about business. Don’t sell the customer something he doesn’t need. If it isn’t the right thing to meet his needs tell him where to get what he needs. If you can’t sell something good, don’t bother. If you truly care for your customers’ “best interests” the money will follow. Your customers are your biggest asset.
The Axmen has a picture of Bud in the entry to help us remember his ideas. You’ll also see a picture of the original crew from the eighties. Four of the five still work at the Axmen. Mark Kindred has moved from a young guy loading railroad ties to being the overall coordinator of a nationally recognized retailer of heating appliances. Times have changed radically, but some things remain the same. We started selling wood stoves during the first Arab oil embargo and we now sell, install, and service wood, gas, pellet, and oil stoves within a 100-mile radius of Missoula.
Dana has headed up tool and equipment sales at the Axmen for longer than he wants to admit. He is the man for the straight answer on tools. If he doesn’t have it, he knows who does.
Grant has taken our steady and basic pump department to new levels over the last ten years with the addition of firefighting equipment of every type and description. Axmen slide-in fire pumpers are now a common sight at wild land fires throughout the Northwest. He still manages to find time to help people plan their dream off-grid backwoods power system and irrigate the front five acres.
In 1998, we bought a welding shop from Phil Cromwell and converted it into a retail store on the south side to be able to achieve one of Guy’s long-term ambitions of selling guns and jewelry side by side in the salesman’s dream atmosphere of mutual guilt. Missoula Mercantile (aka Axmen South) is going strong and having fun.
In 2000 we were blessed in forming Axmen Propane. Our growth has been exciting and our customers’ responses thrilling. Axmen Propane gives us the chance to handle all the parts of our customers’ heating in one package within the same hundred mile circle.
As Missoula has grown and new businesses have entered, we have learned to be grateful for the opportunity they bring to us all. Montana has been good to the Axmen and we try every day to be worthy of the trust that our customers place in us and to find new and better ways to meet their needs.
==Montana Museum of Work History at the Axmen ==
Thanks for taking a few minutes to learn more about the Montana Museum of Work History. For longer than we can remember my brother Grant and I have been collecting stuff here in western Montana. I think it all began around 1965 when my brother Grant traded my mother’s golf bag and a dozen golf balls for a 1918 Pierce Arrow truck that was just begging to be adopted from Harvey Anderson’s farm south of Ronan.
Fortunately, my dad and my brother got it running before my mom decided to go golfing. We drove that truck in parades for years, but when we finally decided to put it on permanent display, we realized that truck, one of four in the US, had quite a story to tell. That story, along with many more, is in this book.
You see, it’s not just the stuff that we want people to experience, it’s the story. The story of how some very determined and hardworking people were able to make a living and raise families right here in Montana. We have a passion to educate people about the strength and courage it took for ordinary people to do extraordinary things. The Axmen is living proof that ordinary people can be successful by consistently doing the right thing day after day. Our goal is to be a museum that celebrates the value of consistent hard work and dedication to what we believe in.
Some ways of making a living just aren’t as popular as they used to be so there may be a tendency to pass them over. We want people to see, and feel, and smell the evolution of logging from springboard and falling axes to drag saws and eventually chain saws. If you think work is hard today just pick up an early chainsaw and imagine the course of a day in the woods.
We started this museum as a way to tell that story and make sure that future generations can hear and feel it. In some ways it’s a tribute to my father and many like him who would wear out a number three shovel in a single shift mucking ore in Niehart, Montana.
Come on out and play with us anytime, we are always happy to share our stories.
