Low-tech store finds niche

KIDRON, Ohio -- When the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 occurred, the first thing that came to mind for Galen Lehman was, "Thank God I'm here."

"Here" meant the relative safety of this tiny farming community in the heart of central Ohio's Amish country. Lehman is vice president of a vast hardware store that his father started 45 years ago and still bears the family name.

Opened by Jay Lehman in 1955 as a non-electrical hardware store geared toward the Amish, Lehman's now sells its vast stocks of unusual products by catalogue and on the Web across the United States and to 200 countries around the world.

Gas-powered refrigerators and wood stoves make up the base of the company's business, but the expansive store sells everything from butter churns to windmills.

Lehman's mail order business shot up 25 percent in October from a year ago, with sales skyrocketing for oil lamps (up 74 percent); water filters and hand pumps (up 146 percent); gristmills (up 97 percent); butchering supplies (up 98 percent); and how-to books (up 76 percent).