‘IT’S TIME’: Retirement sale underway as Shenandoah business prepares to close

SHENANDOAH – A staple of Shenandoah’s business community is closing soon, leaving behind a legacy larger than the lumber and wares they sold.

A retirement sale is underway at Souchuck’s Lumber, 620 East Centre Street.

Glenn Souchuck, second generation owner of the business, told the

Sentinel Wednesday afternoon the building has been sold and inventory is being liquidated.

“It’s time,” Souchuck said of retirement. “I’m going to miss it. I’ve been coming to work here for 43 years, every day, so it’s going to be a change. The community has been wonderful, very supportive. Shenandoah has been very supportive to our business all these years.”

“Made a lot of friends, not just customers, a lot of them became family friends,” he added. “A lot of them passed through the years.”

In a letter to customers, he said “it has been my privilege to work alongside my family, especially my brother Ted, and to continue the tradition that began so many years ago. What started as a family adventure grew into something much more – a place where friendships were formed, memories were made, and the community became an extension of our family.”

Ted Souchuck, Sr., started the business in 1966 after a decade-long partnership in the Kutskiel lumber yard on the present day site of the Shenandoah Valley School District campus split.

In the 1970’s, Ted Jr., 14 years Glenn’s elder, started working in the busines.

Glenn, he told the Sentinel, started full-time in 1983 after graduating from Penn State University and working part-time for several summers prior.

Ted Jr. passed away in September, Glenn said.

The retirement, Glenn Souchuck said, is at a time where the business remained profitable. With a 65th birthday imminent and his brother’s blessing prior to his passing, Souchuck said he’s ready for the next chapter.”

“I’m going to be 65 in the beginning in April and the opportunity came for me to liquidate the business and here we are,” he told the Sentinel. “My son said, it’s exciting and scary at the same time.”

A Lasting Legacy

The entrepreneurial family has left a lasting legacy on the community. Ted Sr. was instrumental in a wide variety of community groups, eventually serving as chairman of the Anthracite Miner’s Memorial Committee in the 1990’s, spearheading its construction at Girard Park.

Glenn Souchuck shared a photo of Ted Sr. at what was then the future site of the memorial.

“He was very involved in the community,” Glenn said.

A framed photo of the memorial hangs above the counter in the showroom.

‘The building has a history’

When the Kutskiel-Souchuck partnership split up, Souchuck’s Lumber set up across town in the present location on East Centre Street at Franey Row.

“The building has a history,” Glenn Souchuck told the Sentinel. “When my father purchased it, the showroom was a laundromat. The other side was a car wash and car repair and there were gas pumps out front. It was a Texaco gas station.”

In the 1930’s, he said there was a boxing ring on the second floor. Archives of the Shenandoah Evening Herald at the time noted there was much more going on at what was then known as Hobbs’ Airdome.

A June 1, 1935 advertisement publicized a “Spring Revue” of 40 people, “mostly girls” set to take place.

It was “the snappiest show in town,” according to the ad.

An article in the Herald on May 31, 1935 previewed the event, which brought in talent from New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. John Hobbs managed the open-air theatre which offered theatrical performances weekly.

A few years earlier, in 1927, it was Hobbs’ Gas and Oil Station, an entity “officially appointed by the State Highway Department to focus lights in Shenandoah.”

Closing Shop

Glenn said the business is due out by March 31 and a liquidation sale is underway.

All inventory is priced to sell, including windows and other home improvement items.

The article ‘IT’S TIME’: Retirement sale underway as Shenandoah business prepares to close first appeared on The Shenandoah Sentinel.