About Al H. Horaney

The following article appeared in the Tyler Morning Telegraph on Sunday, April 6, 2003, in the Business Section under the headline "Consise Description One Thing Horaney's Store Doesn't Have":

The Horaney name in feed, seed, patio furniture and many other items entered the Tyler retail arena this past week.

But it may be difficult to arrive at a quick description of Al H. Horaney’s, Inc. at 5520 Old Jacksonville Highway. Owner Al H. Horaney said he just likes to call it a “one-stop shop”. The store carries items, some of which might be found gracing a patio of a yard, and some of which might be found in a cow pen—or somewhere in between.

Horaney said he does not put the store, which opened Tuesday, in any one category. It sells feed, but it’s more than a feed store. Outside one will find lawn or outdoor furniture, outdoor ornaments and other items; inside one will find items ranging from pesticide to seed to cast iron cookware to tools to tack to hardware to veterinary supplies.

“A lot of people describe us as a feed store, and we are a pretty big feed store, but we’re really big into lawn and garden products,” he said. “We have a real big seed counter where weigh up bulk seed whether it be lawn or garden or pasture.”

The store stocks farm and ranch supplies including gates, panels, feeders and culverts. Horaney said about the only thing it does not stock are motorized tools and equipment.

At 16,000 square feet excluding its exterior area, the building sits on two acres, most of which will be used for displays, Horaney said.

Horaney broke ground for the building in October last year, and he said the business represents about a $600,000 investment, excluding the cost of inventory. It employs 11 people.

The Horaney name might be new to the Tyler retail market, but it has a reputation stretching more than seven decades in Gregg County.

Horaney’s grandfather Harry Horaney started a feed store in Gladewater 73 years ago. The store moved to Longview 10 years later.

“When it originally started, it was just a feed store; for most of those years it was just a feed store,” Horaney said. “My father (Albert Horaney) was big in the store as he got older, and as he got older he added more items over time.”

Horaney and his wife, Genny, a Tyler native, had talked for a long time about having a similar store in Tyler and they finally moved to the city to establish the store.

“We had always talked about Tyler being a good market for another store,” Horaney said. “The closet thing Tyler had—and it’s not here anymore—was Brookshire-Johnston. We wanted to move to Tyler.”

After enduring a rainy winter, the Horaneys saw the building completed recently. Early last week things were still being settled and arranged on the inside and outside, but Horaney said he was ready to get the store open.

The Tyler store follows a tradition, Horaney said, of “If we don’t have it, we’ll get it for you. We don’t mind ordering it and we’ll try hard to find it for you.”

Horaney said he was been in this business 27 years and remembers a lot of items that once sold well but are now hard to find.

“There are a lot of old hardware items that are either really hard to get now or you can’t get them at all,” he said.

But every now and then a company will start making a similar item. Horaney said he keeps tabs on this, and if a company reintroduces a tool that used to sell well, he will try to secure some in his inventory.