Vesco Business Products and Office Furniture Direct Coupland Signs

4
C
Coupland Signs
oupland Signs is a family owned and operated
business that has been in
La Porte since 1992 at 118 South
5th Street. We are a custom sign
shop where our experienced
staff will help you design around
your ideas. Beside the sign shop,
we offer a variety of services,
which include airbrushing, large
format printing, vehicle graphics,
car decals, store front windows,
Owners Dora and Chuck Copeland
magnetic, banners, yard signs
drivers, race car drivers, local inand many other types of signs.
dustrial plants, local city services,
Our motto is “We are here for and many of the small businessall of your advertisement needs”. es in La Porte and surrounding
We have a customer base that is areas. The next time you have a
comprised of all types of interest; special need, or that imagination
ranging from sports teams of all runs wild, stop by and let us help
ages, schools at all levels, truck you make it a reality.
Continued from page 3
Bartleys Drug
of the heavy traffic going to Texas City. There were no doctors between La
Porte and Texas City—not in Seabrook, Kemah, San Leon. La Porte’s Dr
Mock had his clinic at 109 N 2nd. The medical personnel were bringing
the injured to Dr Mock and Dr Aves (around 518 West Main, where Allen
and Kerber/NAPA is located now). Mr. Jack Mercer went to Pasadena and
brought back two nurses because Dr Mock was getting overwhelmed with
the injured from Texas City. That afternoon, Southern Pacific railroad sent
a special hospital train with passenger cars, baggage and mail cars, 20 cars
long, that had to stop at La Porte in order to get train orders to allow them
to go further south. You could see all the interns and nurses all dressed in
white on the train going to Texas City. This was a very bad time in Texas
history.”
I ask Ronnie, “What were some of the business on Main Street he
remembered frequenting while growing up?” Ronnie took a deep breath
then started to let the memories flow. “There were several drug stores in La
Porte. My favorite was Bartley’s at 2nd and Main on the Southeast corner
(see picture), which is now Mainly Drinks. Bartley’s was originally owned
by my grandmother, who ran a Sharp’s Home Made Ice Cream Parlor (see
picture 3). Agee’s drug was on the corner of 1st and Main, which later
Continued on page 5
Vesco Business Products and
Office Furniture Direct
Robin Vest,Daniel Coronado, Alex Coronado,Patty Hall,David Lange,
Donna Lange,Cirino Tello,Marie Preciado, Roma Norwine.
Vesco, a proud sponsor of the “Wounded Warrior’ program, is
a family owned business in operations since 1973. Vesco markets
office supplies, computer supplies, office furniture, hardware and
printing. In a recent article by Bloomberg http:.//bloom.bg/KGEwAA both Best Buy and Wal-Mart fell short of Standard & Poor’s
500 Retailing Index in 2009, the official end of the recession. Demographic changes are also having an impact on Big Box stores. With
the news that Best Buy is closing 100 stores and shifting toward
50 smaller ones, some experts predict the era of the big box store
may be over. The weak economy is the major reason. Demographic
changes and consumers buying more on line are also factors. The
National Federation of Small business monthly economic trend survey had some good news in April,2012 http://bit.ly/JwCrXy The
Index of Small Business Optimism gained 2 points to 94.5 in April,
the highest reading since December 2007.
Robin Ves, owner of Vesco Business Products and Office Furniture
Direct of La Porte, Texas is also optimistic. He says companies such
as his thrive on customer service offering a much higher level of satisfaction than the larger stores can achieve. “We save our customers
time and money by exceeding their expectations each and every
day. We offer more, do it faster and make it easier.
JUNE 2012 ALP SPECIAL SECTION