If you follow my website I used to have a list of businesses on Harvey Road, though I discontinued it a while ago. Today we're going back and re-adding and expanding those entries, starting with 204 Harvey Road, which is currently Advance Auto Parts. The story goes back to Western Auto, however.
When Western Auto opened in 1986 at Townshire1, it wasn't a stranger to the community, a previous Western Auto Associated Store had existed at 300 East 25th Street in Bryan from the 1950s to 1970s. The new corporate-owned store at Townshire, subleased the space from Texas Central Hardware (which moved in 1982, but struggled to deal with the large 60,000 square feet Sears left behind), and dealt exclusively with auto parts (the corporate stores had dropped the broader selection). It also used the Sears auto bays, something that Texas Central Hardware wasn't able to use.
Within a few months of Western Auto's opening, however, Central Texas Hardware shuttered, leaving Western Auto beside itself. In 1990, it left for a brand-new building at 204 Harvey Road, the subject of this post. While older Western Auto stores had a broader selection of appliances and home & garden supplies, the corporate-owned stores by this time were exclusively auto parts, something both the 1986 and 1990 store had.
Although the Western Auto name is gone, the store opened at 204 Harvey is still open today. At the time of the opening of this location, Western Auto was owned by Sears, Roebuck, & Company (it bought Western Auto from its old owners Wesray Capital in 1988), which of course had a large full-line store at 1500 Harvey Road at Post Oak Mall. The biggest difference between the current store and the original Western Auto is that it had an automotive service center, which was a decision by Sears (competition with Sears Auto Center, perhaps?) and affected the local store in 1997 when it was converted to a new name (Parts America) among a major closure round of Western Auto, and in 1998, Sears gave up entirely by selling both Western Auto and Parts America to Advance Auto Parts, and in 1999, the store was rebranded again to Advance Auto Parts, though around that time, the automotive service center was subleased to CarDoc, an independent auto repair shop.
As Sears had converted the company-owned Western Auto stores to Parts America (and Advance Auto Parts finished the job), Advance Auto Parts shut down the Western Auto Supply Company division and gave the franchised stores until 2006 to change their names, ending the use of Western Auto anywhere.
1. The Townshire article needs a major upgrade as of this writing. The Sears wasn't as small as I originally quoted.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I changed the email on the site. I thought it hadn't been working for months, but it was. Still, I can't trust it and it has been changed.
