Astounding selection at Midway Appliance

By Gary George
Correspondent

There are some High Desert residents who haven't recently moved here from below so their commutes can be longer. These folks will remember a time when the desert was a logical place to have a drive-in theater. That drive-in theater location, right off Seventh Street next to the highway, became a plaza anchored by K-Mart.

Gary George for the Daily Press
Don Lager, owner of Midway Appliances with two of his grandchildren, Kelsey and Brayden.

K-Mart quickly disappeared, but their 86,000 square foot location was purchased recently by Midway Appliance who moved there in May 2003.

Owner Don Lager felt the need to expand from the 25,000 square foot location he had built in 1990 near what is now the Verizon building.

The gamble has paid off and a visitor to Midway Appliance on Atstar Drive in Victorville will be astounded at the selection of widescreen televisions, Simmon's mattresses, washers, dryers, refrigerators, furniture and other household goods that is offered.

Lager's business card trumpets 1951 as the store's inception date. Lager's parents moved here that year. His father was in the civil service and worked on George Air Force Base repairing the refrigerators, washing machines and dryers that the base supplied to commissioned officers and later non-commissioned personnel.

His father was running a business in his garage on Midway Street doing repairs on the side when the base contract was won by another company. In 1960 or 1961 he rented a building from Earl Houghton on Seventh Street. That building, a block south of Center Street, is now occupied by a palm reader.

"When I was a kid, that building, was the end of Seventh Street," Don Lager said.

Calling it Midway Appliance after their home address, the store repaired and sold used appliances. After three years the store was moved to the Victor Valley Shopping Center in 1965.

"Also in that center was the old Hartwick's Market, Southwest Gas and Rodman's Clothing Store. Hartwick's was the hub of Victorville in the Sixties," Lager said.

In 1970, Midway moved to the Union Plaza on Seventh Street where it remained for twenty years until Lager built a new location near the old Contel building.

Lager feels that people take their appliances for granted.

"They walk by their refrigerator everyday. It gives you 15 to 20 years of work and we get mad when it breaks down," Lager laughs.

"The biggest thing that has happened in our lives is the digital world. I remember listening to Smoky Joe and Amos and Andy on radio, then watching 13-inch TV screens in the 1950's.

For almost 50 years, the changes were few until in 1998 Mitsubishi was able to show what a high definition television would look like. We've had 200 years of changes in ten years," Lager said.

Lager marveled over the difference between digital and analog TV.

"It's crystal clear, it's better than sitting in the theater," he said.

Lager said that besides high definition television that the biggest thing in appliances is energy efficiency.

"A front loading energy-efficient clothes washer uses 15 gallons of water opposed to 60 gallons in a standard top-loader, plus it spins faster extracting more water out of the clothes, which means less drying time. You'll pay for the appliance over it's lifetime in energy savings and it's gentler on clothes," he said.

Lager wants customers to know that Midway buys scratched and dented appliances directly from the manufacturers and that they are discounted between 20 and 50 per cent off retail.

"Our scratch and dent department is huge. We also sell high-end appliances such as Sub-Zero, Wolf, Viking, Fischer-Paycel and Icon by Frigidaire," he said.

Midway Appliance is located at 14444 Atstar Road in Victorville, and can be reached at (760) 245-3731.

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