Fred Haar Company
(Excerpts from a listing of businesses in the Freeman Courier published in 1954 when the community celebrated its 75th anniversary.)
If Fred Haar had just had the urge to start his business three years earlier, the community company could celebrate its Diamond Jubilee along with the town.
In 1882 Fred Haar and his brother-in-law established a hardware and implement business. The partnership continued until the spring of 1901 when it was dissolved, the hardware sold to Wipf Bros. In 1914 the business was moved to its present location. Associated in business with their father were the four Haar sons, Theo, Robert, Albert and Hugo. In 1938 Fred Haar retired from active management leaving the business to be jointly run by his four sons until 1944 when Robert sold his interest to his brothers and moved to Lake Andes to establish a business there. Not long after Albert moved to a farm near Freeman leaving the business under the leadership of Hugo and Theo, and his two sons Herbert and Alfred.
Haar Company had the misfortune to be gutted by fire. In re-building, a storehouse which was located just South of it was remodeled to be used as an office, repair and storeroom. A large quonset was erected to serve as a warehouse. After the fire a group of men from one of the Hutterite colonies came to help them rebuild and a job which would have taken at least eight months to do was finished up in eight weeks. This was a case of “one good term deserving another” for the Haar implement had at one time extended credit to these people to enable them to buy some needed implements.
Fancy buggies, once ‘best sellers’ are now obsolete, so is horse drawn machinery. Prices have risen in some cases six-fold. In the early 1900s a farm wagon complete with 36-inch box, spring seat, doubletree and neck yoke sold for $45. Today’s rubber tired farm trailer and box comes to around $300.
The Implement Co. is now run by the third generation of Haars, the business will probably continue in the family for a fourth generation of Haar boys who will be able to carry on when their dads are ready for retirement.