Twin City Army Store closing after 63 years
By Gerry Gilmour
The Forum - 07/10/1999
The end of a long sales campaign nears at Twin City Army Store.

Fargo's military surplus store - the last of its kind in North Dakota - is closing later this summer.

Twin City Army Store was founded in July of 1936 in downtown Fargo. The business has taken its licks over the years: the loss of parking at its former downtown location, the loss of traffic when Menard's moved from the West Acres area to 13th Avenue in West Fargo and - most recently - the loss of a roof in the July 4th storm.

But for owner Maynard Boeder, this is a closure, not a surrender.

"I've been in this business for 20 years, and it's just time to do other things," Boeder said during a lull between customers Thursday afternoon.

The going-out-of-business signs are plastered all over the store's windows at 1623 38th St. S.W. Some people are looking for deals. Some are just looking.

It's always been like that here.

There's so much to see. So many things you can't find anywhere else: authentic military leather flight jackets, mess kits, MREs (meals ready to eat), U.S. Marines Corp K-Bar fighting knives, Swiss Army knives, Swedish duck caps, stretchers, cots, mosquito netting, flight suits, G.I. jump boots, harsh-weather sleeping bags and even Samurai swords and other Japanese weapons.

A variety of merchandise. A variety of clientele. Thursday was typical.

There was the photographer, looking for metal ammo cans. He uses the air-tight, weather-proof containers to store film and equipment when he travels.

There was the grandmother, looking for a genuine Army cap for a grandson.

There was the teen-age boy, looking for BDU (battle dress uniform) pants. The camouflage pants - some of which are replica models available in wildly colored patterns - are growing in popularity among youth.

Boeder said he also sells a lot of BDUs to grown men - usually hunters, construction workers and farmers, who like them because they're comfortable, cool in the summer, have plenty of pockets and above all are durable.

"We have a lot of farmers who tell us these pants will wear as long as three pair of jeans," Boeder said.

There was the handy man, looking for a canvass tool bag.

And then there was the veteran, looking at the pins and patches, maybe looking for one from his old unit. There always seems to be at least one veteran in here.

For vets, this is like a museum of sorts. A place they can go to find a still-familiar training manual, or see a genuine World War II German Army sleeping parka.

"This is really a store veterans like to visit for reminiscing," Boeder said.

Steve Clifford is one of those guys who comes to look but ends up buying. The Nipawin, Sask., outfitter found a refurbished military squad tent.

He'll set it up next spring as an outpost when he's guiding on white tail deer and bear hunts in remote areas of northern Saskatchewan.

"I think I got a good deal," he said as he loaded the tent into the trunk of his car. "To go out and get a new one, it would cost double this."

Once Twin City closes - in about a month, depending on inventory - you'll have to travel to the Twin Cities, or Billings, Mont., or who knows where to find stuff like this.

What's left, Boeder said, he'll simply sell to another outlet store.

Boeder said he would have liked to find a buyer for his business, but couldn't. The few who were interested wanted him to help finance the transaction, he said.

Boeder said the end has been coming for a number of years.

Sidney Shore opened Twin City Army Store 63 years ago this summer on NP Avenue. His son, Aaron Shore, ran the business after serving in the Army during WWII.

In 1968, he sold the store to Virgil Dockendorf. At the time it billed itself as the biggest military outlet store between the Twin Cities and the West Coast.

Boeder, a Hope, N.D., farmer who had moved to Fargo to work with the North Dakota Farm Bureau, bought the business in 1980. At the time, he knew nothing about the surplus business. He had taken a military physical in 1950, but was deferred when his father lost an arm in a farm accident.

But he learned. He learned how to find the suppliers and how to bid at the auctions, how to listen to the veterans and outdoorsmen to find out what would sell.

Twice a year he would travel to Las Vegas for trade shows to meet with his fellow surplus merchants. But over the years they were fewer in number.

Military surplus outlets in Grand Forks, Minot and Bismarck have all closed.

Boeder points to a number of reasons.

The armed services are a lot more conservative in buying and how long they use things, he noted. And surplus dealers no longer have first crack at the military supplies and equipment.

The public today often can buy items retail from base commissaries, before items are sold in lots at base auctions, Boeder said.

"And we haven't had any of the long conflicts that leave a lot of military surplus," he said. "Anything the military makes, is made to last."