For 50 years, residents of East Aldine have purchased everything from chicken feed, plumbing fixtures, screws, bolts, pipe and extension cords to gardening supplies, lumber and propane from Jed’s Hardware.

At the intersection of the Eastex Freeway and Aldine Mail Route Road, the neighborhood institution was founded in 1973 by brothers Weldon and Clyde Bailey, who grew up close by.

That’s right. There is no “Jed” at Jed’s Hardware.

The name is an acronym for the kind of old-fashioned hardware store that Weldon Bailey used to visit with his dad, where customers would go in with a list of their needs and a clerk would “jot ‘em down,” recalled Clyde Bailey, the younger of the brothers. Weldon came up with the idea for the name, “Jot ‘em Down Store,” but the cost of a sign led them to shorten the name to the first letters of the three words.

A big 50th anniversary party is in the works for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 27. There will be good food, music, displays and many, many prizes at the store.

Weldon graduated from Aldine High School; Clyde was one of the first students to attend MacArthur High. For years, the siblings ran the business together with a familiarity and fondness for the particular and peculiar needs of their East Aldine neighbors.

“Weldon understood that people would always want feed,” Clyde said, so the store still stocks a wide variety of livestock and chicken feed, not to mention a vast array of pet supplies and food.

Clyde, who said he “always enjoyed working the floor,” was the hands-on brother who lunched with neighbors, joined the Rotary Club and stayed in touch with the needs of the community.

In 1994, after several pedestrians were struck by vehicles while walking along Aldine Mail Route, Clyde and his friends started trying to come up with a solution. Clyde was familiar with the then-new East Montgomery County Management District through his Rotary membership.

Not long after, he met with then-State Rep. Kevin Bailey and proposed the creation of the East Aldine Management District.

Clyde Bailey was the first president of the District, which was initially housed in the same building complex as the hardware store.

 “I haven’t been following closely, but I know they are trying their best to bring really positive solutions in the area” now, Bailey said.

(To which the District staff and board would say, “Thank you, we are working hard, listening to the community and succeeding!”)

Eric Hall

When the brothers retired, they turned the business over to Weldon’s son-in-law, Eric Hall, who met Megan Bailey while they attended Texas Tech University.

Hall, who has a degree in finance, happily gave up his career in banking to run the business. The couple moved to Houston in 2015. Megan Bailey Hall works for a Galleria-area bank and Eric coaches their daughter’s soccer team.

“What I really, really love about this is every day is something different,” Hall said. “And I still do get calls, just about every day, for people who want to talk to ‘Jed.’ ”

Hall is busy planning the anniversary celebration, which will include special 50-cent prices on many hardware items, booths from many of the business’ major suppliers, and the food, including a snow cone vendor, a taco truck, and hot dogs and hamburgers. There also will be free raffle tickets for prizes ranging from a microwave to a Stihl power saw.

The young businessman has put his own touches on the long-standing institution. Jed’s is a member of the Do It Best Co-Op, which gives independent hardware stores the advantage of larger purchasing power.

Hall also decided to “open” up the middle of the store to prominently feature seasonal items that customers would be likely to purchase on impulse, as well as a variety of toys to tempt youngsters tagging along on errands.

Hall also made the decision to purchase a certain brand of lighting fixtures for the store because the brand’s box labels (and accompanying instructions) are written in Spanish – a feature aimed at East Aldine’s largely bilingual population.

A native of Dallas, Hall even begrudgingly carries Houston Astros’ trinkets and memorabilia. And, although he roots for the Texas Rangers, Hall has been known to don a big, foam Astros hat. But only at his employees’ insistence.

Because many homes in the East Aldine community are older, Hall ensures that supplies are available for repairs to older plumbing and electrical fixtures. And, because many customers are long-time do-it-yourselfers, the business will do custom cuts on lumber, glass and sharpening of blades for power equipment.

Instead of renting turn-it-in propane cylinders, Hall has kept the business’ more economical policy of refilling customers’ own cylinders.

Although Hall and his family don’t live in the neighborhood, he is committed to preserving the business’ strong ties to the community.

After Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and during the Winter Storm Uri in 2021, Hall said, “I slept here in the store. I needed to be here, because I knew the people of this community were going to need us.”

He proudly displays a 2017 award from the East Aldine Management District that named Jed’s a Strategic Business Partner. He also makes every effort to offer part-time jobs to students at MacArthur High School. Sometimes, that means working around their sports teams’ schedules, which Hall is glad to do. One valued long-time employee recently started college, and Hall allows him to schedule work around his classes.

“It is still a family business,” Hall said. “If anybody has a problem, they can come and talk to me. It’s a very stimulating experience.”

“I knew what I was getting into,” he said, with a laugh. “But there are those days where I think ‘if I didn’t have any customers or employees, I could get some real work done.”

— by Anne Marie Kilday