19 independent hardware stores closed or announced closure in 2026
Nineteen independent hardware stores, lumber counters and home centers have closed or announced their closing in the US this year, in 15 states. Eight of them had been trading for more than 70 years, one for more than 140. Very few closed because they were failing.
Why they closed
Nobody bought them. The reason given again and again is retirement without a successor. McCoy True Value in Indianola, Iowa closed after more than 140 years. Ayers Variety & Hardware in Arlington, Virginia closed after 78; its owners had decided some time ago to sell before the lease ran out, and no offers materialized. Vernon Hardware & Auto Supply in Michigan went after 87 years, Circle Hardware and Lumber in Waco after 81, open since 1945, and H.C. Layton's in Bridgeville, Delaware after more than a century. J & L Hardware in Orlando, open since 1971, closed with its owners retiring.
These are not distressed businesses. They are businesses whose owner reached the end and found no buyer, which is a different problem and a harder one, because it does not reverse when rates fall or when the housing market turns. A store that has been on the same corner since 1945 closes once.
Other endings. Plant World Nursery & Hardware in Baton Rouge closed after nearly five decades when the Chapman family decided to close following the deaths of its owners, Gary and Marianne, in late 2025.
The cooperative reshuffle. True Value's 2024 bankruptcy and sale to Do it Best is still working through the system two years later. Several of the stores above carried the True Value banner, and their closings cluster around the change: Blossom True Value in California, Benjamin Brothers True Value in Tenafly, New Jersey, Harpeth True Value in Franklin, Tennessee, Rooster Home & Hardware True Value in Dallas.
Two operators in Chapter 11, for different reasons. Chase Ace Hardware in San Rafael, California, run by D&D Venture Group, filed on June 4 in the Northern District of California, case 26-30496. Woodcrest Ace Hardware in Riverside filed on August 11 in the Central District of California, case 6:26-bk-16551, after what the petition describes as an alleged and disputed product-liability and negligence suit over Roundup herbicide; its leases were assumed and its stores stayed open. These are the only hardware bankruptcies in our file this year.
What it means
When the hardware store on a small-town main street closes, nothing replaces it. The nearest equivalent is a big box half an hour away or a website, and for a contractor buying twenty of something on a Tuesday morning, neither is the same thing. The building comes back on the market as a large, low-rent, oddly shaped space that is hard to re-let in a town that did not have spare demand to begin with.
It also says something about ownership transfer that gets very little attention. A generation of owners is reaching retirement with no buyer in sight, in a trade where the business is the building, the inventory and the owner's knowledge of everyone in town.
What would change this reading: these closings are spread across small towns. If they start clustering in metro areas instead, that points at demand rather than succession, and this page will say so.
The 19
Closed (17): Ayers Variety & Hardware (Arlington, Virginia) · Benjamin Brothers True Value (Tenafly, New Jersey) · Billings Hardware (Billings, Montana) · Blossom True Value (California) · Central Center Hardware (Chillicothe, Ohio) · Circle Hardware and Lumber (Waco, Texas) · H.C. Layton's Hardware (Bridgeville, Delaware) · Harpeth True Value (Franklin, Tennessee) · Ilion True Value (Ilion, New York) · J & L Hardware (Orlando, Florida) · McCoy True Value (Indianola, Iowa) · Miller's Hardware (Winter Park, Florida) · Plant World Nursery & Hardware (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) · Poster Hardware (Fairfield, Connecticut) · Rooster Home & Hardware True Value (Dallas, Texas) · Vernon Hardware & Auto Supply (Vernon, Michigan) · Wright City Hardware & General Store (Wright City, Missouri).
Announced, closing later this year (2): Bridgetown Hardware (Green Township, Ohio), which has not given a date, and Cumberland Hardware (East Nashville, Tennessee), closing at the end of the year.
In Chapter 11 (2): Chase Ace Hardware (San Rafael, California) and Woodcrest Ace Hardware (Riverside and Wildomar, California).
What we counted, and what we left out
These are independent stores and small operators, counted as businesses rather than locations. Each is a record with a street address, a source link and a confidence flag in our weekly file.
Three businesses people may expect to see here are deliberately out. Workbench True Value in Pleasanton, California closed one of its two stores and consolidated into the other, which is a move, not a closing. Great Lakes Ace in Center Line, Michigan closed, but it belongs to Ace Retail Holdings, a corporate chain rather than an independent. Scheels Home & Hardware in Fargo closes at the end of the year, but its parent is a sporting-goods group deciding to concentrate on its core, which is a portfolio decision rather than a store running out of road.
Distributors, sawmills, cabinet plants and window manufacturers are not here either; they are a different story with a different cause, in the companion brief, the building-products side of the same year. Anything whose closing happened before 2026 is out.
Records come from local news reporting, state WARN notices, bankruptcy dockets and company announcements. This is a living page: when the count changes, the page changes and the change is listed here.
Updated: September 20, 2026 (first published)
Changelog: first published at 19 independent stores, 17 closed and 2 announced, plus 2 operators in Chapter 11, 21 businesses in 15 states, from the 2026-09-19 edition.
Street names are from our records; house numbers are held for subscribers. The Store Closure Watch file for the week of September 19, 2026 holds 463 records. As of September 20, 2026.