In 1922, Floyd Gault faced a daunting predicament. His right hand mutilated in an accident, his prospects were slim in an economy largely based around manual labor. He knew he would have to make his own way in life and set to the task of building up a business. A hundred years later, the dry-cleaning company he founded still stands, run to this day by his descendants, and now a staple of Mount Vernon.
"My grandfather, Floyd Gault, and his two brothers started the business in 1922," current owner Jim Gault told the Mount Vernon News. "It was a necessity because my grandfather had been injured in an accident and lost all the fingers on his right hand. He was unemployable as a 20-year-old man. He decided he was going to have to make his own job."
Originally based in Ashland, the company passed down from father to son, expanding to Mount Vernon in 1977 and Elyria in 1981. Jim Gault and his wife Debbie took over the family business in 1985, sold the Ashland location, and moved to Mount Vernon permanently. They also bought a few laundromats, including Clean Jean’s in Mansfield.
The family has never forgotten the work ethic that allowed Floyd to build up his company and keep it afloat through world-changing events, weathering the Great Depression, World War 2 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.
"My father, Larry Gault, joined the family business in 1956," Jim Gault said. "Like me, he grew up in the business. You're sweeping the floors when you're seven and you work your way up."
It hasn’t just been hard work that kept Gault Cleaners going, though. The company has had to adapt to fast-changing trends in society, particularly as clothing standards have become more lax, and machine-washable garments become the norm.
"If you look at old pictures in the 1900s, people would wear suits and ties to baseball games," he said. "There was a greater need for dry cleaning. We’re so much more casual now."
In a world of fast fashion, characterized by cheap, disposable clothing, Gault Cleaners has managed to carve itself a niche, putting to use specialized knowledge built up over a century of experience.
"We have people coming from Columbus," Jim Gault said. "Their cleaner referred them to us. It wasn't that their cleaner couldn't do it, they just didn't know how. We do have methods that others have lost."
The latest crisis to weather came with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Commercial districts around the country lay bare as people isolated at home, thousands of businesses closed for good as demand for services plummeted, and millions of workers lost their jobs. Gault Cleaners kept its doors open.
"We never closed," Debbie Gault said. "We were considered an essential business."
It was a harder situation than they could have foreseen, though, and the company saw massive revenue losses.
"Nobody was doing anything, especially those things that would cause them to dress up," Jim Gault said. "We took an 80% hit."
Gault Cleaners persevered, though, and they attribute the company’s survival in large part to their experience and commitment to top level service.
"Our diversification helped quite a bit," Gault said. "We run a very clean operation. In times of illness like COVID, people were very concerned about how clean a facility was. In our laundry mats, we gained market share because of that. It really carried us through."
Gault Cleaners also took the decision not to lay off workers. The staff took on reduced hours during the pandemic but stayed on throughout.
"They stuck with us," Jim Gault said. "We gave them as many hours as we could, as often as we could."
Having survived yet another global crisis, Gault Cleaners now enters its second century with optimism about the future. Developments in the area, including a new Intel microchip factory, promise increased business.
Yet above all, the family put their trust in a hundred-year tradition of hard work and accumulated skill that all started with an accident and a determined young man named Floyd.
Gault Cleaners
Kroger Plaza
855 Coshocton Ave.
Mount Vernon
(740) 393-2831
Hours:
Monday through Friday:
7 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Saturday
8 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Sunday
Closed
