The uncovered brick of what was Huckaby Hardware revealed nearly a century of local history beneath decades of paint, siding, and signage.
In 2025, nearly a century after my grandparents first opened their hardware store on South Main Street in Springfield, Colorado, the building’s aging wooden facade was removed by local resident and current owner Jessica Caricato.
What she uncovered wasn’t just brick and mortar—it was memory.
For the first time, I was face to face with the very structure I had seen in photos my entire life. The same door. The same windows. The same store where my mother, Juanita, stood as a baby on the counter beside her sisters, while my grandparents, Luther and Susie Huckaby, looked on from behind the register.
Inside the Huckaby Hardware Store, circa 1930. From left: daughters Gertrude and Jane, baby Juanita (standing on the counter), and owners Luther and Susie Huckaby.
To see it in person was like stepping into the past. The store had lived many lives— as my grandparents hardware store, then an auto parts shop, then a café, maybe a few other things. But beneath each new identity, the spirit of the Huckaby Hardware remains in my memory. And thanks to Jessica, it finally emerged from behind decades of disguise.
A Building Born of Hope
According to property records researched by Kent Homsher, Robert L. Dick sold the building to Susie Huckaby on February 27, 1929.[¹] The timing couldn’t have been more charged. In the spring of 1929, the local economy was thriving, and the Huckabys sold their homesteads in southwest Baca County and launched their business with confidence.
That November, just weeks after the infamous stock market crash, the Democrat Herald still proclaimed:
“At last prosperity is at our door, and it looks as if Baca at last is going to find its place in the sun.”[²]
Another article predicted even more growth for the region:
“We are predicting another big influx of settlers… the result of the now almost certainty of another great crop for Baca County.”[³]
At the same time, Huckaby Hardware was running full-page ads, encouraging customers to shop and win prizes. For every 50-cent purchase, customers received a ticket for a prize drawing: a rocking chair, a Fernbrook rug, a “Surprize Package,” or a gift to give to a friend.[⁴]
Original advertisement from the Democrat Herald, November 1929. “Buy it at Huckaby’s and Draw a Prize.” A drawing was held for practical and novelty items.
Another promotion from the Nov 22, 1929 Democrat Herald read:
“Our Goods Are the Best and Our Prices the Lowest.”[⁵]
A Building That Held
Within months, the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression hit Baca County. Life changed, but the building stood. It saw good years and hard ones. And though its signs and occupants changed, the brick bones of that South Main storefront never disappeared.
Money was scarce, but people made do. My grandmother traded an entire houseful of furniture to secure three years of piano lessons for my aunts. I suspect mom was a little too young. In a time when very little could be spared, she still found a way to invest in her children’s future—and the store played a central role in making that happen.
An outside view of the Huckaby’s Hardware store with a dust storm in the background. It is the light-colored building in the lower right section of the photo.
When Jessica removed the facade in 2025, it didn’t just expose an old wall—it uncovered a century of endurance. It brought memory and place back into alignment.
Huckaby Hardware 1929 or 1930ishPhoto provided by Kent Homsher. I think I have seen this somewhere else? Let me know and Ill caption.For context “The Store” is the brick building located just north of present day (2025) Pop’s liquor on South Main in Springfield, Colorado.
[1] Kent Homsher, note on property transaction records: Robert L. Dick to Susie Huckaby, February 27, 1929. [2] Democrat Herald, November 15, 1929. [3] Ibid. [4] Democrat Herald, advertisement for Huckaby Hdw. Co., November 15 and November 29, 1929. [5] Ibid.
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