Reflections by the webmaster

This site is produced and maintained by Mark Olson. I started visiting Carr's hobby back when I was about 9 years old. I remember going to the hardware store before it burned and I remember going to the fire sale that was run in the empty bank building just down the street from the store. I bought a pearl handle fancy cap gun. Most of the model stuff was damaged too much.

I spent a lot of time and money in all three of the stores the Carr's had. I started this site about 7 years ago because hobby shops all over are dying and they need all the help us enthusiasts can give them. This was my gift back to Martin and Jack because I did not want to see this store close ever. I did move out of the Duluth area about 6 years ago and the Champaign/Urbana area in Illinois to be near family. Champaign/Urbana is home to Horizon Hobby one of the biggest hobby distributing companies in the US, my son works there. This town now has one hobby shop which was vwry big at one time but they have had to add archery shop, outdoor shop and a coin shop to pay the rent. This was done at a sacrifice of model train space.

There was a nice train/hobby shop about 40 miles away in Bloomington but that closed three years ago. There still is a small train shop about that same distance in McClean Illinois (McClean Train Depot) and I try to help them out when I can.

Bottom line is that the big on-line sellers have destroyed the local hobby shop. It is sad to see places like Carr's here not able to make enough to justify staying in business - now Jack wanted to retire and that is great and I wish him the best, he has been running the shop alone for the last few years. But in another time, there would have been people lined up to take over the shop and buy it from him. Today, it is not a viable option, not enough business. So if you have a hobby shop near you - please support that shop!

These comments are mine and do not reflect anything but my thoughts.

I run my own personal website - https://www.turbinecar.com/

You can contact me by email at - mark@turbinecar.com

My Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/1963TurbineCar/