Local icon Thomas Electric and Furniture held a 75th anniversary party at the store on Saturday, which saw a huge crowd show up to join the family as it paid honor to the more than seven decades of great service in the Malad valley.  Long before the event officially started, a steady stream of family members and well-wishers made their way downtown to show their appreciation for a store that is well and truly a Malad landmark.  

Thomas Electric and Furniture sits on the site of the R.T. Owens Mercantile building, which opened in 1889.  As a plaque recently installed through the efforts of the Oneida Pioneer Museum explains, the “original building was replaced with the brick building in 1909 and was one of the first in Oneida County to have steam and electric lights.  In 1917, the building was sold to the Oneida Farmers Union and later housed a grocery store and the Oneida County Library.”  The building also housed the telephone office and apartments in its time.  In 1968 Gerald Thomas, the great-nephew of R.T. Owens, bought the building and opened the business that is still on site today, owned and operated by the Thomas family.

According to Larry, the building still uses coal, and there is still steam heat.  “We have a boiler, and my dad thinks thought radiators were the original ones for the building, because they’re ancient!”

The building is about 3200 square feet, and as family members began cleaning out some of the less often visited areas of the structure, they found themselves discovering all kinds of things that made their way out onto the sidewalk to become part of an ad hoc display.

One of the pieces was what Larry believes was the original cash register.  “It’s got those buttons where you can put in like two dollars and twenty cents, and it’s heavy as heck, so we never used it, but it’s pretty cool,” Thomas laughs.

“That washer over there,” he continued, pointing to a Maytag brand top loader, “my dad took it in as trade maybe forty years ago.  The other day we plugged it in and wouldn’t you know, it still works?  It’s from 1942.”

A display case of logos of brands that have been sold by the store over the years was also on display, as well as service manuals, product displays and more.  The amount of history on site in just a portion of the city block is staggering, to say nothing of what lies inside.  For many of the city’s residents, Thomas Electric is the only thing that has been at that location in living memory.  For those with a few more years under their belts, it has still undoubtedly become as visually entrenched a part of town as just about anywhere else you might think of.

In addition to the store and the number of people it has affected through its products are the people that have been supported by it, including Larry himself.  Dozens of family members—many of whom are still involved with the store, and most of whom have at least spent some time working for it—spent the afternoon meeting, greeting, and taking in the amazing thought of seven and a half decades in Malad.  In many ways, the celebration was a great demonstration of why Thomas Electric is such a well-loved store.  Comments from people in person tended to emphasize the personal nature of the service provided at the location, and comments from those not able to make it (or who moved away from Malad long ago) reiterated the same point.  There’s just something friendly and warm about shopping with the people at Thomas Electric and Furniture.  

“My dad started in 1950 doing electrical contracting.  My grandpa Roy was the head miller up at what was called Crowther’s mill, and my dad worked for him.  My folks got married in 1945, and he wanted to do something more than work for the mill so he decided to become an electrical contractor,” Larry Thomas explained.  You would probably not be shocked to hear that among the items he came across while looking through business materials was his father’s original electrical license, from March 1950.

“Thomas Electric was just the contractor service in 1950, but in a March 5, 1959 Enterprise I found an article celebrating the first store anniversary.”  The store’s first physical location was “right where the gym is now.”    

As the plaque indicated, the current building became the home of Thomas Electric in 1968.  (The grocery store that was in the location up through 68 moved across the street next to Allen Drug.) “My mother was working for another business in town, and she decided to just become the storekeeper here.  She stayed here and stuck it out, and she had heard through the grapevine that her former employer kind of hoped that she would ‘t make it so she would come back and work for him!  I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it could be, who knows?”

Larry is the youngest of the family, so according to him, the store was “basically a second home.” With his parents working for the store and keeping those hours, he spent a lot of time on the site he still does today.

Electrical work has been a part of the family ever since 1950, with Randy Thomas remaining a contractor until about 10 years ago, and Thomas Electric still bearing the family name proudly.  

Bratwurst and ice cream was just one of the treats, as a display of objects hinting at the history of the business and the presence of those who have worked to make Thomas Electric what it is were the real desserts of the afternoon.

Larry and Wendy Thomas are synonymous with Malad, not just in conjunction with the store, but with many parts of the city—4-H, City Council, Bus Driving, church callings, and too many organizations and volunteer efforts to list.  It’s tempting to say that the city of Malad doesn’t know what a good thing it has, but the fact it that it seems like it does know.  And this Saturday, it showed up to say thanks.