Iron City Hardware has recently expanded its furniture operation into a building across the alley on Second Street.

“We needed more space for furniture,” said owner Jim Hacker.

He said their sales of furniture had been going up and they needed more space.

“We have a full floor upstairs,” said Hacker, as he sat behind the hardware store’s counter. “It is just that there has been more demand for furniture, we needed more space. So we moved in next door.”

As for why furniture sales have been increasing, Hacker said he didn’t know exactly, but thought that “maybe people are just tired of the big box stores.”

And Iron City Furniture stocks a lot of things.

“We have couches, dining sets, chairs… whatever people want,” Hacker said.

The new furniture space is run by Hacker’s son-in-law, Ford Rucker.

Iron City Hardware has been a fixture in downtown Ironton for nearly a century. And it has been owned and operated by the Hacker family the whole time.

“My grandfather, Herman Hacker started it in 1926,” said Hacker.

His father, Don Hacker, and his brother, John Hacker, took it over in the mid-1950s.

Jim Hacker took over the daily operations in the early 1990s, but he started working at the store much earlier than that.

“I’ve worked here since I was 14,” Hacker said.

After he got off from school he would head downtown to work at the family store.

The Hacker men were all in the hardware business for so long, that there are four Golden Hammers on the wall of Iron City Hardware that celebrate four of the Hacker men, Jim, Herman, Don and John, for being in the business for 50 years.