Fresno Ag Hardware just turned 150 — and once reinvented the shovel
Founded in 1876, the store's original owner invented the Fresno Scraper, a tool now recognized as a direct ancestor of the modern bulldozer blade.
Fresno Ag Hardware traces back to 1876, when Scottish immigrant James Porteous opened Fresno Agricultural Works as a downtown wagon shop serving San Joaquin Valley farmers and ranchers. In 1883, Porteous invented the Fresno Scraper — a C-shaped bowl that lifted soil instead of pushing it, quadrupling the productivity of manual earthmoving. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers later designated it an International Historic Engineering Landmark, and its design is considered a direct predecessor of the modern bulldozer blade.
The business hasn't had an easy run the whole way — a 2008 lease dispute forced a costly relocation just as the housing market crashed, and the store operated in the red for four years before a surge in home gardening sales during the recession helped turn it around.
The company marked its 150th anniversary in June 2026 with a bucket sale across its Fresno and Clovis locations. Today it stocks more than 70,000 products and is run by Ian Williams, grandson of the man who bought the business in 1953 — still, by its own description, the largest independently owned hardware store in the Central Valley.