The last "military surplus store" in the area is closing down.....

[WFO2]

Most towns with a large military base still have real surplus stores . Ft Hood is close enough to mr for a drive and they have several real surplus stores .

[mold maker]

We have a new store nearby, but it's not the same as the old surplus. Gone are the days of the great deals for young guys. Everything now is unfamiliar new stuff.
Guess I just dated myself.

[country gent]

And then there was Bannermans mail order. Pretty much everything under the sun

[RogerDat]

Harry's Army Navy Surplus started in a loft selling used shirts, jackets and pants in the late 60's or early 70's. The Ann Arbor store provided probably half the wardrobe of the college students. Later they got into a bigger location and had all manner of surplus items, shelter halves, camping gear, packs and frames from US and a lot of other countries. I still use a couple of leather ammo pouches from there. My kids play tents were shelter halves. I still have a wool Pea coat I think might be Italian navy.

They had a basement stock room and when they moved out they found the former stock boy had been hitting the C rations through MRE's up for the smokes, coffee, chocolate, and sometimes a meal. They found this out because there was a drift of opened and pillaged packages piled behind some pallets of old stock. Along with the canteen base cups and used up sterno cans he employed to heat his pilfered loot. We are talking years worth of debris.

The moved to go upscale but over time shifted to all upscale camping and sporting goods, and then were creamed by the big box stores and internet sales of same goods. I think they may still have a store over in Dearborn area, might have to drive over and take a look next time I'm headed that way.

[HABCAN]

In the late '60's Crown Surplus in Calgary had 9mm and .45ACP ball ammo in big wooden barrels.............and sold it by the POUND. There were paper bags and a metal scoop for 'help yourself'. They had a wheeled 40mm Bofors outside in the lot.........for sale. I think they were asking the exorbitant price of CDN$2,000.00 for it. A few guys I knew bought Bren Gun Carriers to use for wilderness hunting, but were put off when the tracks jumped off the bogies in sharp turns: there was a steering axle in the front, i'm told. And others bought undercarriage wheels from Lancaster bombers to make dune buggies. Them were the (innovative!) days!

[RGrosz]

Sioux City had 2 across the street from each other. they closed years ago. When I moved down to the Omaha area and was still in the USAR used to shop Cainfields all the time. I still miss the place and the stores.
Rob

[Harry O]

Originally, the Canfields store was in a very old brick building on Cuming St. at about 24th St. The building had several businesses in it. As other businesses in the building moved out, Canfields expanded. Eventually, they had the entire building. Creighton University was 2 blocks from the store. I doubt if many people from Creighton shopped there. It is a VERY expensive private school. However, Creighton started expanding in the 1980's. Whenever a property went up for sale, they bought it. Most did not even bother to go up for sale. They just got an appraisal, upped it considerably, and then contacted Creighton. Canfields was one of the last to go. They sold the building (and land under it) for an "undisclosed amount" about 20-25 years ago. They used the money to buy a shopping center with a big empty building that they moved into. It was near 84th St. and Center St.

I wondered what Creighton could put on the land. I knew from previous engineering work in the area that "Public Sewer Line #2" ran under the building. Yep, the second oldest sewer in the City ran under the building. It was built sometime in the 1880's. It was a triple-layer brick sewer line about 7 or 8 feet in diameter. And it was pretty shallow. Building are not supposed to be built on top of sewer lines (for a number of reasons), however, they may have not learned WHY you don't build buildings on top of sewers until after the building was built.

Anyway, Creighton ended up putting a parking lot on top of it, one of the few things that is allowed over sewer easements. I figure that was a pretty expensive parking lot. I wonder if Creighton knew about this restriction before they bought the property.

[10-x]

Old Army surplus is collectable, one reason its gone. Millions of GI items were made in WWII, after leand lease give aways after the war most was sold for pennies on the dollar. Can think of many on the east coast that are gone. Original owners passed, most seems had kids with no interest so big auction or worse it went to the dump. Was a 13 story one in JAX Fla. that had just about everything from WWII - Vietnam. Torn down and a parking lot now. Guy outside Petersburg Va. had M 151 tubs, M-37 cook stoves and lots in between, gone now as he passed. Then the guy in Boone, N.C. had "Ducks" he drove from Jacksonville, N.C. to Boone in 1946, converted them to logging trucks, also had tons of other GI equipment. Remember going to ones in Richmond, Baltimore , Winston Salem and many more. Worse thing is all the so called surplus knock off junk from china, rothco, IIRC. By chance you have the true old surplus better check out what it is, shame to trash a $300-$500 jacket when you can sell it to a collector and by a nice Bean or other new one. Good ole days are gone for good.