Lake Co. store offers a truly old-school shopping experience

You can imagine horse upon horse being tied up outside Wadsworth Feed & Saddlery while the animals' owners went inside to make purchases.

It's easy to envision this scene because the feed shop operates in a 104-year-old former railroad station on Wadsworth Road, east of Route 41. Creaky wooden floors and equipment such as a full molasses tank assure a visitor the building is old.

Roxanne Gaszak manages the store that's been owned by Wisconsin resident Roger A. Hays and his family since 1992. Transformed into a feed store in 1910, she says the fact that little has changed in the building draws customers.

"People who come here, I think, come for the nostalgia," Gaszak says. "We're real friendly."

Wadsworth Feed & Saddlery still does business the old-fashioned way. For example, the staff still provides handwritten receipts, bypassing computerized versions that come out of cash registers.

The Hays family produces much of the animal feed at its Wisconsin farm. Choices for horses posted above the front door include alfalfa, steam-rolled oats, beet pulp, bran and steam-rolled barley.

In addition, the family makes handcrafted Christmas wreaths, which customers began ordering this month. Birdfeeders and other items made by hobbyists are sold by the shop on consignment.

Customers needn't worry about lugging heavy bags of feed or other stuff to their cars, or even the occasional horse used for an errand. Wadsworth Feed & Saddlery employees always perform the chore.

"It's still old school," Gaszak says.

Tim Mojonnier, 30, of Wadsworth is the warehouse manager and has gotten to know the building quite well. He enjoys his job.

Instead of contending with crashing computer software in an office, Mojonnier works around an oat bin and a corn-cracking machine that's no longer in use. He might even find an ancient soda bottle when he's working in the store's upper reaches.

"I tell some people where I work and they go, 'Oh, I thought it was a museum,' " Mojonnier says.

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