InTouch with Southern Kentucky January 2020 | Page 24

BUSINESS
CALEB LOWNDES I CJ
Harold Hurt stands in one of his warehouses that stores their furniture and other equipment.
A Downtown Icon
Anderson Office Supply celebrating 60 years
BY JANIE SLAVEN
COMMONWEALTH JOURNAL
A
nderson Office Supply is
celebrating a big birth-
day this year.
A landmark in down-
town Somerset, the busi-
ness was founded in 1960 by Clay
Anderson after the company he had
been working for, Associated Supply
closed its local branch and moved
operations to Lexington. He is affec-
tionately remembered as “Papaw”
24 • I n T ouch with S outhern K entucky 
by current owners Harold and Terry
Anderson Hurt, his son-in-law and
daughter, who took over in 1989.
“Papaw started in his basement,”
Harold explained. “He drove back
and forth everyday to Lexington,
and that was back when the roads
narrow and winding…In the mean-
time, he was working nights and
weekends repairing calculators and
selling carbon paper and ribbons.”
That side business kept increasing
to the point that Anderson was able
to officially branch out on his own.
After a year of operating out of the
basement, he opened Anderson
Office Supply’s first storefront —
appropriately enough — on Market
Street. They’ve been at the current
location, 116 North Main Street,
since Clyde Ping moved his men’s
shop to Tradewind Shopping Center.
“At one time, Papaw covered 27
counties,” Harold continued, adding
Anderson would actually drive to
them on weekly rounds taking or-
ders and delivering supplies.
J anuary 2020