Sapulpa’s newest antique store, Mother Road Antique Mall, isn’t scheduled to open until November 1st. Still, the two-story building that formerly housed the Rustic Furniture Savings Place is already getting plenty of traction among locals.
At 619 E Dewey, the doors and windows are still papered up, but there’s a buzz of activity as prospective vendors arrive to talk to Benjamin Scroggs and seek out open spaces ahead of the store’s opening. But make no mistake: the business owner is not Ben but his eighteen-year-old son Ethan, who has decided to jump right into the world of entrepreneurship instead of college or trade school.
Despite his youth, Ethan has packed a lot of experience into the short number of years he’s been active in the antique collecting industry.
Benjamin first became interested in antiques while watching the television show American Pickers. As he began to hunt for forgotten treasures, it wasn’t long before Ethan—who was five years old at the time—started tagging along. Ethan began showing signs of his ability to haggle early in life.
“I took him to a show called Iowa Gas up in Iowa, and we went, and he loved oil cans. And there was a guy from the American Pickers there, and he said, ‘Stop by my place on the way home.’ So we’re going back through Kansas, and we stopped at this guy’s place. And he goes into this warehouse, which is full of gas and oil pumps and signs and everything.”
He said Ethan almost immediately goes off into a little corner and starts digging around for something special. He finds a small oil can, brings it back to the owner, and asks how much he wants for it. The owner says, “How about twenty bucks?”
Ethan looks at it, he takes it, and spins it around. He goes, ‘That ain’t gonna work.’ He’s five years old!” Ben said.
He said that, eventually, five-year-old Ethan talked the owner down to ten dollars. “I still have that can at home,” he said.
Ethan continued to attend antique sales wherever he could find them, but he always wanted to open a store.
“My dad walked in the house, and he said, ‘Hey, there’s a building for sale, do you want to come check it out?'” Ethan said. “For the longest time, I was telling my dad, ‘If you ever find an opportunity, a building for sale or something, we can make something happen.’ And so we went over here, looked at this building. I mean, as soon as we stepped in the store, we, you know, we saw the opportunity of what it could be.”
According to his dad, Ethan’s knowledge has grown exponentially over the years. “He’s learned over his life the value of a lot of different types of antiques, from gas and oil memorabilia to silver to coins,” he said, adding that Ethan bought his first truck by trading a silver coin collection for it. “Then he saved up enough money to put a down payment to buy this building.”
Ethan says the multi-story building is great for what it will be, thanks to what it’s been in the past. “I mean, the history on this building is really cool,” he said. “I believe it was here before the town was built. The owner we bought it from said that this was one of the first buildings ever built in Sapulpa. And I really love the history on that.”
The store is filling up fast, and opening day is quickly approaching, but Ethan says he’s “not as nervous as I should be, because I’m just trusting God.”
“At the age of 18, you know, even if it doesn’t work out, I believe God is going to bless me with more opportunities as I grow older,” he said. “I just love this stuff. Love it.”
