A Store Where the Price Was Always Right
Neal Price’s Firestone Store

Al Koch
November 2022

It was a store for all seasons.  Long before big box stores, mini-malls, name-brand outlets, and giant shopping centers, one place featured the right stuff at the right price.  Located in the heart of Whiting Indiana’s business district, at 1309, 119th Street, it was one of the townspeople’s favorite places to shop. An orange-red neon arrow pointed the way to the entrance, and letters of the same neon color spelled the store’s namesake: FIRESTONE. And while that brand of tires was certainly sold there, everyone referred to the store by its proprietor’s name: Neal Price.

Neal Price’s was Whiting’s version of a General Merchandise Emporium. It was headquarters for sports equipment, radios, televisions, paints, bicycles, cameras, small appliances, automotive needs, toys, and phonograph records. If ever a store defined hometown America in the 1950s, it was Neal Price’s. Like a living calendar, the store’s window displays announced and celebrated holidays and seasons. Shoppers agreed: The Firestone Store was a retail paradise.

Neal Price’s Firestone store was not a stand-alone enterprise.  It was interconnected with the past, present, and future.  Contemporary merchandise for auto, home, and personal enrichment was the hallmark of this amazing establishment. Unbeknownst at the time, Neal Price’s would become a cherished memory-maker.  So many ordinary minutes became treasured moments to remember. Purchased items marking milestones in one’s life are recalled with cognitive images aged like fine wine.  It has become a favorite mind oasis to pause, muse and saunter about savoring happenings from once-upon-a-time.

In October of 1955, Price’s store windows displayed the fine furniture cabinetry and visual operation of the newest RCA Victor color television’s telecasts of baseball’s World Series.  It was standing room only each day after school, as kids and townspeople crowded the 119th Street sidewalk to view the Fall Classic “via NBC’s peacock living color.” Like season ticket holders, youngsters, and grown-ups alike watched the annual diamond battle between Charlie Dressen’s Brooklyn Dodgers, and Casey Stengel’s Bronx Bombers.  America’s pastime featured two of baseball’s iconic fields of dreams:  Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, and the “House That Ruth built,” Yankee Stadium.

During the Christmas season, windows showcased electric trains, dolls, toys, sleds, skates, (both roller and ice), and gifts for Mom and Dad. Beckoning shoppers and passers-by alike to window shop and be childlike again was a miniature winter landscape, complete with blankets of white cotton-snow, ornament-laden Christmas trees, tiny alpine-like houses illuminated with colored yule lights, Santa’s toy-filled sleigh with soaring reindeer, as well as a Nativity scene staged with stable, manger, and hand-painted figurines.

When spring arrived, future major leaguers headed to Neal Price’s to purchase necessities for Whiting’s field of dreams--Standard Diamonds. To Little League ballplayers, the store was their diamond supplier. Sporting needs from A to Z could always be filled at Neal Price’s. Whether the activity involved gridiron, courts, lanes, fields, lakes, fairways, or frozen ponds, community sports-minded consumers shopped for their equipment at Neal’s Firestone Store.

Always on the lookout for products to entice patrons and additional business, Neal dazzled customers by presenting them with a snapshot of themselves, developed on-the-spot with the newest, innovative, Polaroid Land Camera. This was the first time in history that Polariod had a Kodak moment! Regardless of product or season, shoppers could always count on quality, fairness, and courtesy from Neal Price.

Beginning in the late 40s, Whiting-Robertsdale adolescents became a major influence in the success of Neal Price’s business. A generation of teenagers feasted on purchasing 3-speed phonographs, and phonograph records.  Initially, they bought 10-inch shellac-based 78 rpm records.  Then, in 1949, RCA Victor released their 7-inch, flexible-vinyl plastic 45 rpm record. 

Concurrently, several adolescent-focused phenomena occurred.  Teenagers became a potent economic force—they had money to spend.  As a result, Chicagoland radio stations began advertising and programming aimed at capturing the teen audience and their spending money.

Along with broadcasting top tunes, rhythm & blues and infectious rock ‘n’ roll, AM radio showcased the personalities of glib-talking disk jockeys who played songs requested by listeners.  These pilots of the airwaves filled car radios and pocket transistor speakers with catchphrases, and vocal antics. The tsunami of energized youthful consumers culminated with Dick Clark’s American Bandstand debut on national television in August of 1957.  Adding tacit support, several Whiting-Robertsdale businesses featured a jukebox filled with popular 45s. that teased youthful patrons to feed them a steady diet of coins from pocket and purse. 

A year later, in 1958, stereophonic phonographs were being sold at the Firestone store.  This infusion of coming-of-age adolescent economic power caused Neal Price to expand his record department. He installed a couple of listening booths where teens could preview the latest records of current heartthrobs.  These booths engendered the increase of sales of 45s and 33-1/3 rpm long-playing albums. A fringe benefit of the listening booths was the cozy social propinquity for teenage reviewers.  

Daily, the listening booths were occupied with after-school adolescents listening to the latest recording artist featured at Neal’s record department. In those days, kids could audition the latest “opera” in the booths next to the record counter. With headliners like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ricky Nelson, Del Vikings, Pat Boone, and the Everly Brothers filling radio speakers across the land, the audition booths were rarely unoccupied. When energetic and exuberant teens exceeded the two-person, two record limit, store associates, Lulu Kammer, Jim Grass, or Neal himself would cordially remind bobbysoxers and stud muffins of occupancy rules.

Pocket-sized affordable RCA transistor portable radios became the rage.  Music was now at one’s fingertips. Neal Price sold RCA Brand products. Like iPhones of today, every kid wanted one.

The Call letters of favorite radio stations are fondly remembered:   WWCA, WJOB, WIND, WCFL, and WLS.  A partial list of on-air talent (in random order) included Howard Miller, Jerry Gerard, Vivian Carter, Steve King, Dizzy Dixon, Dick Biondi, Ron Riley, Art Roberts, Don Phillips, Lee Rogers, Larry Lujack, Dick Williamson, Clark Weber, Gene Crowley, Sam Holman, Jim Dunbar, Dex Card, and Milo Hamilton.  These air-wave pilots filled speakers with Top 40 music teens craved.  Youthful listener’s ravenous appetite for rock ‘n’ roll inspired them to buy records for at home listening. En masse, they went to Neal Price’s and purchased the 45s of choice for 89 cents a record.

To further entice additional sales of the 45 rpm, 7-inch records, customers who purchased a new RCA Victor black and white television set received the gift of a small 45rpm record player that used the TVs amplifier via a phono jack on the back of the television’s chassis.

Savvy business owners know that it takes more than merchandise to be successful. What made Price’s so popular and successful then-- and for several decades afterwards--so memorable were the employees.  Along with owner, Neal Price, the store was managed by Jim Grass. Assisting Neal and Jim was Lulu Kammer.  (Neal’s wife worked in the office in the back of the store). Working together, they created   and cultivated a customer friendly, vibrant, energetic, and professional business atmosphere.  Their individual and collective demeanor conveyed a message to patrons: “You are appreciated, valued, and-- welcome!”

As kids there were times when we overstepped boundaries and taxed tolerance and patience.  Somehow, “Team Price” always managed to treat us with courtesy, cushioning our adolescent shenanigans. Over time, we grew to respect and admire them. Occasionally, while shopping for the latest turntable sounds, we sought their advice. Willingly they offered counsel, helping us to more clearly understand and cope with adolescent concerns. Jim Grass was especially gifted at relating to young people. He was always a positive influence on teenagers. Had he decided to do so, Jim would have been and outstanding teacher.   As store manager, Jim’s creative window displays for Neal Price became legendary.

Neal Price’s closed many years ago. But in its heyday, it was the best, the very best. All these years later, it is not possible for me to pass that building, (now an antique store), without “seeing” the window and merchandise enticingly displayed, remembering the purchase of my Wilson first-baseman baseball glove, as a Little Leaguer in 1952, purchased with money earned from collecting old newspapers during cold winter months.  The following year, as a Pony Leaguer, official spiked baseball shoes and Rawling’s fielder’s mitt, again paid for by selling old newspapers.  Lake Iron and Metal Company in Hammond paid a-penny a-pound.  At twenty dollars per ton, sporting equipment was affordable with a few dollars to spare.

Our family’s first television set, a 16-inch black-and-white RCA console, was bought in the fall of 1953.  Money earned as a pin setter at the Whiting Community Center enabled the purchase of a seven-transistor RCA pocket radio for my dad on Father’s Day 1957.

Permit this writer a reprise of a few thoughts: The 1950s and 60s radio DJs captured listeners with Top 40 hits sauteed with their creative alliterations, clever on-air chatter, catch-phrases, and rhythmic lexicon, that became the soundtrack of our life.  Beginning in August 1957, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand filled black-and-white television screens five-days-a week from Philadelphia showcasing teen personalities, new dances and current hits enriching our high school years.  Neal Price’s Firestone Store became teen headquarters where youthful rock-and-rollers could buy the latest hits.  Many teenagers joined Neal Price’s Record Club.  I still have the now, “Oldies” 45s and albums purchased at Neal Price’s so long ago.

When I was nineteen, I purchased a set of 4 Firestone Nylon 500 Whitewall tires for my 1960 Oldsmobile 98 convertible.  Five years later, home maintenance became a priority, and other purchases at Price’s took precedent: vinyl records gave way to Kem-Glo paint.

Most of all, I remember Neal Price, (my cousin) Lulu Kammer, and Jim Grass. They touched so many lives and made a positive, constructive difference serving residents of Whiting-Robertsdale.   Their business acumen and personal demeanor enriched the times of our life.  Individually and collectively, they enhanced our teenaged years. My appreciation is beyond words. I loved Whiting, Indiana’s Firestone Store. Truly, it was ahead of its time—a place where the “Price was always Right!”