LA GRANDE — Working one’s entire career for the same company is a rare record to claim.

However, it’s not so rare if you’re Orville Miller, who just retired from Miller’s Home Center after 79 years of working in what began as his grandfather’s cabinet shop.

“I was 7 years old in 1944, when I started working at my granddad’s place,” Miller, 86, said. “His name was Dan D. Miller, and he employed my father, Dannis, and me.”

Dan D. Miller, of Colfax, Washington, came to La Grande in 1927 when he was 38, and he reconnected with an old friend, Claude Pratt, owner of the Claude C. Pratt Lumber Co. on Cove Avenue. The two men entered a business arrangement where Dan Miller was proprietor of D.D. Cabinet Shop and Pratt was the salesman. Miller operated from a small building that he rented from Pratt behind the lumber company.

Miller stayed at this location for the next five years. In 1933, he left the lumber yard site and stepped out on his own in a building at 1406 Jefferson Avenue.

The shop continued to grow, and it needed larger quarters. So, in April 1942, Miller’s Cabinet Shop moved to its new home at 217 Greenwood Ave. The business became a leading retailer of custom-made doors and windows and the carrier of the largest stock of glass in Eastern Oregon, according to its advertisements.

An era of change for Orville

Life was going along well until 1943, when Orville’s 27-year-old mother died. His father, Dannis, who worked every day at the cabinet shop was left to raise Orville, 5, and his brother, LaVern, 3.

“Without mother at home, my dad and I and my brother, LaVern, moved into granddad’s home at 2111 Second St.,” Miller said.

There, the boys had the care and love of their grandmother, Katie Miller. “It was a convenient place to live because we could walk to Riveria School from there pretty easily,” Orville Miller said.

The next year brought a surprise change for Miller when his granddad hired him to work at the cabinet shop with him and his father. He was excited about becoming a wage earner at such a young age.

“I came to work almost every day after school let out,” he said.

His granddad assigned him to keep the shop floors clean, sweep up the sawdust and to pick up the small pieces of wood and put them in a gunny sack.

“I got a nickel for every gunny sack I filled with those wood pieces. Granddad used them in his furnace,” Miller said.

A booming business

There was a booming economy in 1946. Orders were pouring into Dan Miller’s Cabinet Shop. They couldn’t keep up, and the shop was nearly two months behind on filling its orders. There were approximately 300 orders waiting to be filled, orders for doors, window sashes and built-ins, most of which were ordered by local customers.

Pine was used predominantly at the shop, but Dan Miller found plywood to be very suitable for making cabinets, and he ordered from a source in Portland. Meanwhile, the sales of screening and glass made for a busy day for Orville Miller.

The year 1955 was another “booming” year for Miller’s glass sales, but not for the reason anyone expected. On the morning of April 25, 8,800 pounds of powder exploded at the Union County Powder House on Blackhawk Trail. It had such force that brick dust debris shot an estimated 1,000 feet into the air. A man working at the fairgrounds a mile away was blown flat on his back by the dust, The Observer reported at that time.

Change of ownership

By the 1960s, Miller’s father, Dannis, took over the business. During his tenure, he added the sale of hardware to his store. Consequently, the business name was modified to D.D. Miller Cabinet and Hardware Store.

“We also became the dealer of Pittsburgh Paint, something we sold for the next 50 years,” Miller said. “I did a lot of retail work, selling glass, hardware, paint and waiting on customers.”

By that time, Miller had married Bernice Opp, and they were raising two children, Teresa and Douglas. Miller also served in the U.S. Army for three years, but afterward, he and his family returned to La Grande and the family business that was waiting for him.

“I took over the store in 1979 from my dad, and I remodeled the store and built on to it. I ran it for 18 years, but I never wanted to be a business owner. I’ve always liked being just an employee,” he said.

So, in 1997, he sold the store to Steve Colkitt, Miller said. Colkitt renamed the business to Miller Home Center and built a large new store off of Island Avenue in 2018. Colkitt invited Miller to help him set up the hardware department in the new store on a part-time work schedule. After several years there, Miller decided he would retire from his job at Miller Home Center at the end of 2023.

Today, Miller still has his door locks and keying business, The Lok Dok, which he has been working at for the past 60 years. His dad taught him this part of the business, and after 79 years of work, he wanted to make sure he took his keys with him.