A True Value hardware store that served Franklin, Tennessee for more than five decades is preparing to close its doors on April 1, marking the end of a community institution that outlasted recessions, housing booms, and decades of shifting retail trends before finally running out of road.
Harpeth True Value Home Center, an independently owned affiliate of the True Value cooperative, will shut down permanently after owner Mike Outlaw determined that neither a sale nor a path forward was possible. He spent months reaching out to potential buyers, exhausted every option available to him, and ultimately concluded that closing was the only remaining choice.
How True Value lost its footing in Franklin
The store’s collapse in Franklin traces directly to lumber, which had accounted for between 70% and 80% of Harpeth True Value’s total revenue. When Outlaw purchased the business from longtime owners Mike and Shelley Moeller in 2022, he inherited the store’s physical assets but not its most valuable resource: decades of contractor relationships the Moellers had spent years building.
When the previous owners departed from Franklin, so did a significant portion of the builder clientele that had kept the lumber business alive. Outlaw came to understand firsthand that the building trade runs on personal connections, and without the relationships the Moellers had cultivated over decades, the contractors who had once been regulars quietly took their business elsewhere. The core revenue stream that had sustained the store for years disappeared faster than he had anticipated.
True Value’s corporate bankruptcy made things worse
Harpeth True Value’s struggles did not happen in isolation. The broader True Value cooperative filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 2024, a development that sent ripples through the roughly 4,500 independently owned True Value locations across the country. Do It Best ultimately acquired True Value’s wholesale assets for $153 million, though the independently operated stores were not included in the bankruptcy proceedings.
For Outlaw, the fallout at the corporate level created a problem that was difficult to quantify but impossible to dismiss. Customers who saw headlines about True Value’s financial troubles had no way of knowing that their local Franklin store operated independently, and that uncertainty was enough to erode confidence at the neighborhood level even when the store itself was doing nothing wrong.
True Value stores are closing across the country
Harpeth True Value is not an outlier. Independent True Value affiliates have been shutting down at a steady pace as pressures facing the cooperative pile up from multiple directions.
Blossom True Value Hardware in Mountain View, California announced it will close when its lease expires in summer 2026. Workbench True Value Hardware in Pleasanton, California closed its longtime Santa Rita Road location and pulled back to a single downtown storefront. Each closure follows a similar arc: a locally rooted True Value store, years of service, and a retail environment that no longer leaves room for independents to compete.
The forces driving these closures are structural. Home Depot holds approximately 28% of the U.S. home improvement market. Lowe’s controls around 17%. Amazon accounts for roughly 11%. Those three players have collectively made it harder for a True Value affiliate to compete on price, product range, or convenience, regardless of how deep the community ties run.
What Franklin loses when True Value leaves
True Value hardware stores have long filled a role that big-box retailers do not. They are places where homeowners get real advice, contractors build working relationships with knowledgeable staff, and the act of buying a box of screws doubles as a brief exchange with someone who knows your name.
That version of retail is what Franklin is losing on April 1. Outlaw has confirmed the closing date is firm and has no plans to pursue bankruptcy protection. The store will close, and the True Value sign will come down for the last time after 53 years.
