Tandy Corporation Listed on the New York Stock Exchangeīy 1954, Charles' enthusiasm for providing the leather parts and tools to make wallets and other items had grown the Tandy Leather Company to 67 stores in 36 states and Hawaii, with sales of $8 million. The disagreement ended in a split in 1950 when Charles and his father formed Tandy Leather Company, while Hinckley kept the shoe business. His views clashed with those of the family's partner, Norton Hinckley. Pretty good for those times but not good enough for Charles.Tandy Leather CompanyĬharles firmly believed in the high gross-profit margins of the leathercraft business and the growth possibilities of the leisure-time hobby market. The Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company was a five-store and mail-order catalog operation with about $750,000 in annual sales. He told his father that leathercraft was the way to steer the company during the war years – and to prepare for what he believed would be a healthy, new, post-war hobby market.Ĭharles Tandy returned to Fort Worth in 1947 a driven and demanding man with big dreams. Tandy (1918-1978), while serving in the Navy during the war, observed how leathercraft was used as a therapeutic tool for patients in military hospitals and by servicemen in recreation and rehabilitation centers. Shoes were rationed – two pairs per adult per year – and leather for civilian use virtually disappeared. Although the company survived the Great Depression, it was nearly crippled when World War II began in 1941. Meanwhile, the Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company grew modestly through the years. This is how it would remain until the company and a young Texan named Charles Tandy crossed paths four decades later. The brothers thought the name was fitting since their store would supply the equipment for ship’s radio officers, as well as ham radio operators.īeginning in 1921, Radio Shack would grow to a handful of stores clustered in the Northeast, and become a leading electronics mail-order distributor to hobbyists.
They chose the name, "Radio Shack," which was a term for the room that housed a ship's radio equipment. William Halligan, one of Deutschmann's first employees and later the founder of Hallicrafters, suggested the name, “Radio Shack”. To pursue their interests, the brothers opened a retail store (a block from the site of the Boston Massacre). At the time, this radio technology was cutting-edge and the field was wide open. These young immigrant brothers wanted to provide amateur and ham radio equipment to the public much of it was leftover Army gear. Two years later (1921) and half a continent away, two London-born Bostonian brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, opened a one-store retail and mail-order operation in the heart of downtown Boston. Their venture, which the two gentlemen named the Hinckley-Tandy Leather Company, sold leather shoe parts (soles, heels and shoelaces) to shoe repair shops in the Fort Worth area.Īlthough the partners had no way of knowing it at the time, their humble beginning would evolve into Radio Shack Corporation – a multifaceted, multibillion dollar company, and one of the nation's largest retailers of consumer electronics. During their visit, these ambitious young fellows decided to pool their resources and go into business together. The story of Radio Shack begins in 1919 in Fort Worth, Texas, with a chance meeting of two friends, Norton Hinckley and Dave L.
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