Greetings family friends and neighbors! Today's rambling is about a former Mission San Jose business that began as a blacksmith shop nearly a century ago......Bill

Historical Ramblings

McIVOR’S HARDWARE

A bustling village began growing up along the old Vallejo Road soon after the founding of Mission San Jose in 1797 providing services and goods to the nearby residents and wayfarers. Throngs of fortune seekers including John Fremont and Kit Carson  passed through the village and over Mission Pass on their way to the gold fields in the mid 1800’s purchasing goods,and fresh Mission Valley grains, fruit and vegetables for their journey. By the end of the century Mission San Jose was providing  a range of services including a hotels, general stores, boot makers, winery’s, an ample collection of Saloons, and horseshoe and wheel makers.   

The sounds of clanging and hammering from the forge at Frank Martin’s Blacksmith Shop on Washington Blvd. could be heard across the dirt street at the old mission and for blocks around. Burton and Maria McIver, newly arrived in Mission San Jose  from Canada and sensing the need for the continuation of horseshoeing, the forging of rural agricultural implements and metal work on motorcars  purchased Martin’s historic business in 1927. Within two decades the smithing business had faded and the McIvor’s began a fledgling hardware department in the front of the shop creating “McIvor Hardware and Farm Tools”.  Son Bob joined growing family business in 1952 and encouraged his father to build a larger store next door and increase the hardware inventory to serve the newly formed city of Fremont and the growing number of contractors and do-it-yourself home owners. Bob and his wife Pauline ran the family business for nearly forty years before deciding to take the next step and create larger full service Hardware business a block away on Ellsworth Street that was run by son-in-law Al Auer’s family in the final years.    

Frank Martin’s original Blacksmith Shop still exists on Washington Blvd.and is now home to Firestone Photography, the the recently vacated former Mission Roasting Company building was McIvor’s second location, and their imposing stucco building on Ellsworth Street has been vacant since since 2018, a victim of competition from nearby Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe’s. Sadly the third and final location of McIvor’s ninety one year old historic family business sits behind a chain link fence and designated by the city ironically as “future residential housing”.      Bill 1/24