Turner, Pierce & Fultz

In 1934 Harvey Turner left Madisonville for Navasota driving a large truck loaded with 1200 hoe handles and 2400 plow handles. With $10,000 Turner and his partner, J. L. Cooper, opened Cooper-Turner Hardware. In a 1974 interview with the Navasota Examiner Turner recalled: "At the time (1934), farmers and stockmen were paid by the Federal government for killing cows and hogs. Money was in short supply. I had to trade my horse-drawn farm equipment for hay and other products to make a sale. Merchandise was very cheap. You could buy a roll or barbed wire for $3.75. Hoe and plow handles were 25 cents each and rope was 15 cents a pound. Good land was selling for $6 per acre." Those prices may be a distant memory, but the qaulity and service of a small town, family-owned hardware store lives on.