Early History of Lowe's

Lucius Lowe

&

Lowe - Buchan Partnership

In 1921, Lucius S. Lowe opened Lowe's Hardware store in North Wilkesboro. Lucius was the son of John Anton and Marinda (Minda) Dowell Lowe, John was the son of Caleb A. and Lydia Brown Lowe who was the brother of our Joshua Lowe Jr. Lucius and his wife, Floy Wray, had three daughters and a son, when Lucius died in 1940, he left the family business to one of his daughters, Ruth.

Now Ruth had plans of her own and it didn't include running a hardware store, She had her eyes set on a nice young man, Carl Buchan. So she immediately sold out to her brother, Jim Lowe, for the sum of $4200. Carl Buchan was from Sanhills and at the time he met Ruth he was working for a finance company out of Charlotte. By 1941, Carl and Ruth were newlyweds and living in Kinston were Carl was working for the Atlantic and East Coast Rail Road.

However, December 7, 1941 and the Pearl Harbor attack changed all of our lives, this put a generation of young adults lives on hold for the duration of the war. Carl graduated from Officer Candidate School at Camp Lee, Virginia, and was station in Texas. Ruth moved back home to help her mother run the little hardware store there in North Wilkesboro.

In the mean time, Jim was serving his country as an instructor in the air corps. In late 1943, Carl received a honorable discharge after suffering complications from a foot injury in Texas. Jim Lowe, while still in service, offered Carl half interest in the store, all he would have is to take a complete inventory and pay him half of the worth. This made him and Carl partners in a business that was going somewhere.

When Jim came home in March of 1946, he became activly involved in the store. This gave Carl to develop contacts that he made while working for the railroad. Over time, the Lowe's Sparta Hardware store opened and Jim was satisfied with these two stores but Carl was beginning to dream of a chain of Lowe Hardware stores.

Jim Lowe was a hearty, happy-go-lucky guy whose large frame had inspired the nickname "Puny." In 1946, he met and fell in love with dark-haired Lucy Thurston, a teacher from Taylorsville. In February of 1947 they married, and for a while they lived with Jim's mother in the old house on Trogdon Street where Jim had grown up. Jim and Lucy had two sons. Jim, being a lifelong resident of North Wilkesboro, was perfectly content to be the big fish in his hometown pond.

Carl Buchan saw no reason why Lowe's marketplace shouldn't extend far beyond its current perimeter. By 1952, he was looking at Asheville, a 100 miles to the southwest. There was a place selling millwork and bulding materials on Biltmore Avenue in Asheville, and Carl wanted to buy it. So he and Jim went over there and made the deal and they were each to put up half the money. On the morning of the closing, Jim came down to the office and said that he wasn't going to take his money out of town. The deal fell through . And this started the negotiations that separated Carl and Jim. Their partnership was brought to an amicable end, Jim took B&L Motors and the cattle farm, which he would later sell back to his brother-in-law.

Carl Buchan became the sole owner of Lowe's. On October 22,1960, Carl Buchan, at age 44 died with a massive heart attack, by this time, however, the store that he started was well on it's way to be great in the marketplace.

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