Huron Welding is 100 years old
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HURON – Jack Wold came to town in 1918, establishing Huron Welding in a cramped, rented space in the Fair City Garage building that a man named Hugh Barrett owned.
Before that, Wold had homesteaded in western South Dakota and worked for the Homestake Gold Mine.
But in the era of blacksmiths, his welding business was unique.
“When my grandfather came here, if not the first, he was one of the first bonafide trained welders,” Jim Wold said.
Jack Wold often worked side by side on welding jobs with his friend Barrett, in a shop that measured 12-by-28-feet. That small area remains part of the Huron Welding building today, at Second Street and Kansas Avenue Southeast in downtown Huron.
But over the years the business has expanded to a labyrinth of rooms and shop areas that encompass 24,640 square feet.
By 1922, Jack Wold had purchased Barrett’s Fair City Garage building. He owned and operated his shop throughout the 1920s, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the economic recovery of the 1940s.
It was a challenge for any business owner to survive the depression years.
“I ran across some ledgers that said, ‘Took in 25 cents today,’” Jim Wold said of his grandfather’s books.
“I think real good advice is that when hard times hit, if you stayed the course and you got out of debt and you’ve taken care of your fundamentals you’ll make it,” he said.
“And, as a nation, I wish we could get a hold of some of that,” he said. “We’ve just gone off course that way so hard.”
Harlan J. Wold bought the business from his dad in 1954. He continued the repair and fabrication business the elder Wold had run for decades. In 1985, Harlan Wold sold Huron Welding to his son, Jim.
And now the business is flourishing under yet another generation. Joel Wold is general manager.
The company is embracing much more technology, and Joel Wold is putting his engineering degrees from South Dakota State University and San Diego State University to good use at Huron Welding.
“He can design anything a customer would want in three-dimensional CADD (computer-aided design and drafting) software on the computer,” Jim Wold said.
ROGER LARSEN/PLAINSMAN
Hugh Barrett, left, and Jack Wold work on a welding job at Huron Welding, a business that Wold began in 1918 in a small area of the Fair City Garage building owned by Barrett. This is a scan of a photo that hangs in the office at Huron Welding.
Next, owner Jim Wold, right, and his son, general manager Joel Wold, are shown in front of Huron Welding, a downtown business that is celebrating its centennial this year.