Harbor Freight vs. Menards vs. other regional home improvement stores???

Just curious about how many regional home improvement store chains are out there?? I know there are national ones; Home Depot and Lowe's (I think is national) come to mind but I had never heard of Harbor Freight before joining SMF. I suspect its a Northeast and Great Lake region store. As someone who likes collecting geographic info trivia, just wondering how many regional home improvement stores are there in the US and Canada??

Besides the 2 national stores I mentioned above, my metro has two Menard's stores. Menard's is out of Wis. but I've seen them as far west as Rapid City, SD. Just wondering what's in your neighborhood for a big box regional home improvement store??

Dakota
Harbor Freight is more of a tool/hardware store than home improvement.
To add to your list. Wisconsin, Ill and Iowa have Farm and Fleet stores.
Blain's Farm and Fleet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ace Hardware, HOBO, Blaine's, Harbor freight, Menard's, Home depot are all in this area.

We have Ace Hardware as well as franchises (maybe a lot of chains are franchises). If you add farm supply stores, we have Tractor Supply Company (TSC), Mac's, and around other small cities in eastern SD, Runnings and a very small sub-regional company called Campbell Supply.

Menards actually has a store as far west as Casper, Wyoming.

In town, we have an Acer, a Hardware Hank, and a Tractor Supply.

We have Lowe's, Home Depot & Ace, and just recently got a HF in Nampa. Before I was having to make a 45 mile R/T. Now I am within 3 miles.

Here's a map of HF locations. I see one in Rapid City. 550 stores nationwide.

Harbor Freight Tools

Lowes is a national chain. Harbor Freight, while I shop them for many things, are more akin to a dollar store for tools than a home improvement store. Northern Tool is along the same line as Harbor Freight and Rural King is similar to Tractor Supply Company.

Thanks Idaho, I guess I should have looked for a map of HF as well.

harsas- Do you think Rural King is a Southern chain??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DakotaRog

harsas- Do you think Rural King is a Southern chain??

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Actually, Rural King is an Illinois store but it only has a small number (relatively) of stored in the Midwest and south. Mostly I the Midwest. I think they have like 60 or 70 stores...

Aubuchons
true value
tractor supply (NEW)
agway
Ashland lumber
sears
Handyman Hardware

Up here in Canada, we have our very own Harbor Freight....called Princess Auto. Kind of like a farm store/wannabe city weekend warrior supply store. Used to have lots of decent surplus stuff, but has slowly morphed into having lotsa Chinese junk.

also:
Lowes
Home Depot
Home Hardware


Jon.

Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace and H.F.

There is a harbor freight , home depot, lowes, and a mcoys in brownsville texas.

We have a Harbor Freight in Sarasota, Florida.

Wow, I'm surprised then that Harbor Freight doesn't open a store in Sioux Falls. Its economy never seems to falter much. People here love spending money on tools...

Hey Rog ~ Don't know if you ever travel north up I29, but there is a HF in Fargo. Haven't been there myself but planning on it sometime. My mom is in a nursing home in Fargo so we get there quite often. I have a Chicago brand 1/2 impact and sockets from HF. Had it for a couple years now, been a good tool.

Rapid, Fargo, maybe someone in Sioux Falls pissed them off in the past...Maybe Denny Sanford (our don't name anything after me "reluctant" billionaire who has about half of Sioux Falls now named after him). Maybe Billions (the actual name of one of the largest cars dealership around here) can open a Harbor Freight in SxFalls...