This post is a followup to yesterday’s bit on the Magdalena Village library, a.k.a. the Depot.

If you step across the street from the Magdalena Library, you face the village’s hardware store and HVAC specialist. Clark Brown owns Eagle Hardware Supply, but if you try to find his business by the building, just look for the giant old warehouse by the library with the lettering “Charles Ilfeld Co. – Wholesalers of Everything” prominently facing the road.

And of course, you pause, because the building is big, and it is old.

Built in 1913 in Mission Revival style, the Charles Ilfeld warehouse is on both the State and the National Registers of Historic Buildings, and it’s not surprising Ilfeld’s name is on the building.

Ilfeld was an entrepreneurial mercantilist from Las Vegas, NM, who built a small empire in the state supplying ranchers. With an eventual network of warehouses in Las Vegas, Raton, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Magdalena, Ilfeld provided frontier folk and cattlemen with a broad array of supplies at wholesale prices from his storehouses, and outfitted other New Mexico retailers with wares at wholesale prices. In 1916, the Magdalena warehouse became Ilfeld’s acquisition, and because Magdalena was the end of the railroad spur in southwestern New Mexico, it did very well at its location, supplying the many hands from southwestern New Mexico and eastern Arizona that drove livestock into the town for sale and shipment by train back east, where they also picked up dry goods and ranch equipment.

Yvonne at the library told me I needed to see inside the Ilfeld building, so when I crossed the street and entered the gravel lot beside the giant building, a jacketed man in a cap stood on the long porch looking down on a small dachshund in the drive. Asking him if the store was open and I could look at the building inside, he said sure and led me inside.

Yvonne had told me to visit the building for a few reasons: it still had an old scale usable on the floor. It also had an old manually drawn, counter-balanced elevator that was still operational, and fascinating to see.

The proprietor introduced himself, and showed me how his hardware store really only occupied the front third of the giant building. He pointed out a few of the building’s novel historic features. The outer walls were made of red bricks, four bricks thick. The fire system in the building was largely the same as when the building was constructed. Beneath the wood floors, the building also had a full basement. And in one upper corner, a large apartment built into the original structure for the lodging of the manager had been expanded into a sizable home for a family member.

He took me over to see the elevator first. Stepping behind the formal hardware area, he showed me the old industrial scale, and then behind it he let me walk among his stored HVAC and large inventory items to photograph the building.

And naturally, I was drawn to the criss-crossing beams supporting gables, and the windowed pavilion in the center of the building’s roof, with its ample supply of natural light.

Clark was open and affable, sharing some about the history of his family and the expansion of business in the region.

At the end of my visit, Clark invited me into his spacious office to show me a few more items of interest.

An original Ilfeld catalog, used by salesman to show clients items in the company’s huge inventory.

An old 7000 pound safe he acquired, which a gang of men had to work to its present position, fearing it might at any time it might collapse and fall through the floor. The door itself was 500 pounds, he told me. It was challenging to nudge a few inches.

And a box of old newspapers he had come upon through associates or friends somewhere along the way.

The building is a pretty amazing structure to check out, and Clark was a friendly and gracious host.

As I turned to leave after thanking him for his time, he picked up one of the old yellowing newspapers, and asked me if I’d like to have it. He had plenty, wouldn’t miss it.

An old Albuquerque Journal from Monday morning, June 28th, 1965- a paper published two months before my sister was born, and over three years before I would become a New Mexican.