photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Orscheln Farm & Home is pictured on East 23rd Street in Lawrence on Oct. 31, 2022.

You know you are not exactly in the Wall Street fast lane if the big merger you have been wondering about involves tractors instead of tweets. While the fellows in the Teslas have been wondering about the future of Twitter, those of us who drive something with a granny gear have wondered if Lawrence may be set to lose one of its two farm and ranch supply stores.

If you recall, the national chain Tractor Supply Company announced in February that it had reached a deal to buy the entire Orscheln Farm and Home chain. The pending purchase created some questions for local farm and ranch consumers, given that Tractor Supply and Orscheln both operate stores on Lawrence’s 23rd Street.

Surely Tractor Supply wouldn’t find it good business to keep both businesses open. It seemed like the other boot (likely a rubber one for slopping hogs) would drop at any time.

Instead, the federal government has stepped in with an action that appears to increase the chance that both Lawrence stores will remain open. The Federal Trade Commission earlier this month required Tractor Supply to sell 73 Orscheln stores to Bomgaars Supply as part of an agreement aimed at ensuring Tractor Supply didn’t get too much of a monopoly in some markets.

Lawrence’s Orscheln store at 1541 E. 23rd St. is one of those 73 stores that has been sold to Bomgaars. The sale already has occurred, and technically the store is a Bomgaars. However, a manager at the store told me the Lawrence location is expected to continue to sell Orscheln products until near the end of the year. At that point, consumers will start noticing a brand change to Bomgaars merchandise.

“But it will be pretty close to the same as Orscheln’s,” manager Derek Crawford said of the type of farm and home merchandise that Bomgaars will carry.

The location still will very much be a farm and ranch supply store. The big news with the deal is it removed the threat of the Lawrence store closing.

“It sure did,” Crawford said. “This has been good because there has been no job losses here.”

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A Bomgaars logo appears at the Orscheln Farm & Home Store in Lawrence. The store on E. 23rd Street is in the process of converting to a Bomgaars Supply location.

Bomgaars is a family-owned retail chain based in Sioux City, Iowa. The latest acquisition of 73 stores brings the chain’s total to 180 stores in 15 states. That’s large enough for Bomgaars to be the second largest farm and ranch retailer in the country, based on store count, the company said in a blog post announcing the acquisition.

The company’s website lists a large number of departments that the store does business in. They include: farm and ranch supplies; livestock supplies; home goods such as cleaning supplies to food products; outdoor living equipment; power equipment including lawn mowers and chain saws; clothing and footwear; automotive items including tires and batteries; hand and power tools, and many other items.

As part of the deal with Tractor Supply, Bomgaars also will acquire the corporate headquarters and distribution center of Orscheln, based in Moberly, Missouri.

Bomgaars dates back to 1944, according to information from the company’s blog post, and the company’s owner, Roger Bomgaars, still routinely travels to each store with his wife during a spring road trip to meet with employees. According to the blog, it sounds like the couple will be coming to Lawrence and the other new store locations as part of that effort.

“I am grateful to our executive team for their persistence in seeing this deal through to its ultimate and successful conclusion,” Roger Bomgaars said via the company. “Our family is proud of our organization, each of our approximately 3,300 current employees, and the difference we make for our farm and ranch clients and customers every single day.”

As for for Tractor Supply, the deal with the Federal Trade Commission has allowed it to finalize the takeover of 81 Orscheln stores across the country that have now become Tractor Supply locations.

Tractor Supply already was the largest farm and ranch supply retailer in the country, and the competition isn’t that close. Bomgaars announced it was the second largest with 180 stores. Tractor Supply now has about 2,800 locations, the publicly traded company said in a release.

Tractor Supply operates it lone Lawrence store on the far eastern edge of town near the intersection of O’Connell Road and East 23rd Street. The retailer was the first to locate in a new commercial district at that intersection, and thus far is the only commercial business in the center years later, although the area around it has started to develop with more housing and office uses recently.