R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press At Pioneer TV and Appliance, Leah Murphy holds a pitcher that nestles into the “Beverage Center” of a modern refridgerator.

EDITOR NOTE: The Daily Press will be featuring a series of articles on local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run on a regular basis in the Daily Press.

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ESCANABA — Pioneer TV, Appliance and Sleep Center on Ludington Street currently pours across roughly 14,000 square feet between 11th and 12th Streets. The Escanaba business that today sells, installs, repairs and recycles appliances used to be in a different field half a century ago.

Today, Dan DeRouin and Leah Murphy — each of a generation succeeding the founders — do a good amount of heavy lifting at Pioneer.

In 1974, Terry DeRouin (Dan’s father) and Larry Shanahan (Murphy’s father) launched a business in Escanaba called Pioneer Builders. They entered the market as a home building operation. When Harnischfeger Industries left town, demand in the area took a turn, and Pioneer pivoted from construction to match what was needed.

Dan, who is now the general manager, said that laundry washers and dryers were brought in first, followed by kitchen appliances. The original store was at 500 Ludington St.

When the business was growing in the 1980s, Terry’s brother, Tim, joined the business for a while.

“They added TVs, satellite dishes — all that kind of stuff throughout the ’80s,” Dan said.

Televisions took off in the ’90s even more so, but times continue to change. Now, said Dan, it’s appliance sales that make up most of the business by far, followed by mattresses.

The sleep center was the most recent addition at Pioneer. Expanding into that market was a leap of faith. Now, bedding occupies the east side of the space owned by Pioneer — 1112 Ludington Street, which used to house the entirety of the operation.

Pioneer has been fulfilling a manifest destiny of sorts — they’ve actually migrated a handful of times, moving gradually westward as the business has grown. In the ’90s, it resided on the 1000 block.

The area now filled with ovens, washers, dryers and refrigerators — 1116 Ludington, connected internally to the sleep center — was previously the site of variety store Ben Franklin.

It was around the turn of the millennium that Ben Franklin left.

“We purchased this building because it was much larger and moved all the appliances over here and remodelled this store,” said Dan of the west side at 1116 Ludington.

Shanahan passed away in 2004, after which point Terry took over the business. He continued to manage things until about 2015, said Dan, who explained that he has been running the store since, and that they’re in the process of passing over ownership.

Pioneer carries many brands, which Dan said is unusual for an appliance store. Murphy said that it allows people to mix and match, and that certain manufacturers have unique features. One thing that needs to be accounted for when decorating, though, is the colors of the appliances.

“Black stainless,” for example, is a color that started to become popular briefly, but is weird to work with because it looks so different from one brand to the next. Colors come and go, and it’s up to the manufacturer what will be availble, so Murphy said it’s risky to get something trendy.

“For laundry, white is right,” she said, explaining that she’s seen multiple shades of red enter and exit the market, and “there was an aspen green, then a forest green.” Compared to the short lives of such fad colors, it’s a pretty safe bet that it won’t be hard to find another white machine if one of a set of appliances should fail.

Murphy has seen some cool features in the 23 years she’s worked in the store, and pointed a few out. There are fridges with panels that can be swapped out for different colors. Some have compartments for drink pitchers. One is backlit. Another unit has a section that can be set to be either refrigerator or freezer.

A fairly new product on the showroom floor is a 2-in-1 washer-dryer from GE, which was introduced earlier this year. It utilizes ventless heat pump technology, another innovation.

“GE said it was their most successful new product launch ever,” said Dan. Pioneer has moved several since bringing it in, and the one on the showroom floor the day the Press was in had a “SOLD” tag on it.

The biggest difference Murphy said she’s seen over the course of her time working at Pioneer isn’t technological — it’s the people and their shopping tendencies. Nowadays, she said, customers tend to walk in with an exact idea in mind, and are less likely to peruse and discuss options than older generations were.

But Pioneer works to fill demands and desires, cooperating with other local businesses to do so. Dan said they work closely with contractor Eagle Building, builders like Schwalbach Kitchens and Perk’s Cabinetry, apartment buildings like West Highland and Meadowbrook, housing aid for St. Vincent de Paul and more.