Cowls Building Supply is more than a typical lumber and hardware store; it is a unique lumber and building-materials business that blends the best of the last three centuries with the best of the new.
Family owned and operated since 1741-our history, veteran staff, and contributions to local arts and education set us apart from the competition. As a family owned building supply business, Cowls Building Supply is committed to public service and to making a contribution to the local and regional communities.
Cowls Building Supply has also committed itself to helping and being a part of our local community. We are proud supporters of our local Boy Scouts and Habitat for Humanity. We also, for the first time in 2013 supported the Jimmy Fund. Cowls supports our local businesses and the community that we live in.
Throughout its nine generations of family ownership, Cowls Building Supply has been unique among the lumber and building materials businesses in the Pioneer Valley and neighboring regions. Constantly evolving, it has grown from offering timber and hardware to providing a wide range of quality products and services to professional contractors, remodelers, and do-it-yourselfers.
It started in October, 1741, when Jonathan Cowls crossed the Connecticut River from Hatfield with his family. They were one of the first five families to settle land in what was then Hadley and is now North Amherst. Over the next 270+ years, the Cowls family purchased timberlands in approximately thirty other towns in Hampshire and Franklin counties, winning numerous awards along the way for sustainability and forest stewardship.
In 1980, Paul C. Jones, 8th Generation Cowls, opened Cowls Building Supply. The store quickly became a successful, full-line, full-service retailer of lumber, paint, hardware and building materials. More recently, the new Kitchen Design Center and Door and Window Showroom was added.
While the Cowls Sawmill closed in 2010, W. D. Cowls, Inc. Land Company has set new goals for sustainable forestry, land conservation, alternative energy, and environmentally-conscious development. Today, you can still find the 9th generation of Jonathan Cowls’ descendants, Evan Jones and Cinda Jones, at the forefront of that mission.