Longtime VW business clearing out

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

A downtown Van Wert fixture has closed its doors for good and now, all that’s left is to finish clearing out.

One Hour Cleaners, 114 N. Washington St. opened in 1959 as One Hour Martinizing, then underwent a name change when Ron Roberts purchased the business 10 years later.

Roberts, 77, said a combination of his age and new regulations were the main factors in the decision to close the dry cleaning business.

“You can’t run a ‘perc’ (perchloroethylene) machine near an apartment building and with them (Van Wert Forward) remodeling, they’re going to have apartments in the area,” Roberts explained. “It’s quite a process to close it down and get all of these machines out.”

Roberts also explained that an employee suffered an injury at home and was unable to keep working, which left him to work alone and he added he planned to just hand over the business to another employee.

“She worked here 31 years and originally I was just going to give her the place and she could rent the building from me but it got to the point that I had to tell her she wasn’t going to be able to make a living, so she went and found another job,” Roberts said. “That was the start of the downhill slide. This is a dying industry – you need it but not enough to make a living with it.”

“It used to be people would wear suits for everything and it was really busy,” he added.

Roberts recalled he came to work as a manager at the business in 1962 or 1963, but it wasn’t exactly a smooth start.

“I went to Delaware, Ohio to train and went I came back everyone had quit – they didn’t show up for work,”Roberts said with a chuckle. “They were mad because a lady who worked here didn’t get the job. They had run the machine clear out of ‘perc’ so I took the still down and was able to get it to run again. At that point, the guy who owned it sent a guy down to help me until we hired somebody else.”

Roberts purchased the business in 1969, a time when dry cleaning was still a booming business. At one point, he had five employees with three of them running the machines or pressing and one or two at the counter.

Not all dry cleaners offered one hour cleaning and Post said when business was at its peak, it was most likely a big draw. Otherwise, the turnaround was a couple of days.

“You could do it in an hour…it was a pain, but you could do it,” Roberts said. “If someone had a funeral to go to or something like that you could get them in and it was perfect.”

All customer pickups are complete and Roberts said once the bigger equipment and machines are moved out, the process of shutting down will be complete.

“A guy in Dayton says he can move the boiler so now at we’re at his mercy as far as the timeline,” Roberts explained. “The rest, if no one wants it I’ll wind up scrapping it which is sad because there’s a lot of money in it.”

“Everything is gone, but you can’t believe the stuff I took to the Salvation Army and Goodwill,” he continued. “I took six wedding dresses the other day and I took four a year ago.”

Once the building is cleared out, Roberts doesn’t plan to sit idly by.

“I suppose not having any responsibility is okay but I’m thinking I’m going to find something to do,” Roberts said.

He added those needing dry cleaning service can take their goods to a Duffy’s Cleaning drop off point at Jamie Lynn’s on South Shannon St. They’ll pick up Tuesdays and Thursdays and take the items to Lima to be dry cleaned.