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In any given lake, there’s always one fish that can never be caught. It uses its smarts to stay one step ahead of the most experienced anglers. Over the years, Kame’s Sports has run its business much the same way. With excellent service and a wide selection, Kame’s has outsmarted the competition and gained the respect of outdoors enthusiasts everywhere.
Kame’s was started in 1968 in an old dry cleaning store that was about the size of a two car garage. It was located on the present property, however, it was mostly all wooded with an apple orchard in the rear and a small bungalow just behind the dry cleaners.
At that time it was just an outboard motor and boat service facility. There were no products to sell. As a matter of fact, the very first thing that was offered for sale was a dozen one gallon gasoline cans. That was our entire inventory. The area where our sign is located out in front was all lawn and trees. We eventually added other items for sale, including lawnmowers, bicycles, mini bikes, and small boats and canoes. The first major item for sale was the Coleman Camping trailers.
In 1973 we opened a second camping trailer lot in Peninsula, Ohio. We decided to close it in 1976 when we bought the inventory of Reel Live Bait Company. This was a hunting and fishing store that Mr. Kame’s father had started in 1941.
By this time we had built a block building to use as a repair garage. Upon purchasing the hunting and fishing equipment, we remodeled the block building to become our store. This store (which had our gun counter, hunting equipment, fishing tackle, camping supplies, etc.) was what is now part of our motocross accessory room.
We then built another block building to be our repair shop. The next expansion came in 1983-84 when we connected the two block buildings with our center section, or the two story section of our main building. The latest expansion was the new showroom, which was started in 1988 and completed in 1989. Since the last edition in 1989, we have changed the interior design by moving the gun department, fishing department, and clothing department into the large showroom in the spring of 1992. Camping trailers were moved into the old store where guns and fishing used to be and where the motocross department is now. In 1997 we sold our Coleman dealership and stopped selling camping trailers altogether. The motocross department was moved into the old camping showroom in about 1998 and has been in that building ever since.
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