Northwest Pony Express had its start in California

In his more than 50 years in the gun trade, Joe Ellithorpe has seen a lot. Living in Idaho has proven to be more peaceful and an overall better fit for his family as he recently opened Northwest Pony Express, a shooting sports enthusiast store, in Coeur d’Alene. However, the past 14 years had been particularly troublesome.

It started with the 1992 Los Angeles riots in which gangs of looters threatened to spill over into the neighboring San Fernando Valley, where Ellithorpe’s 10,000-square-foot Pony Express Sports Shop, which housed thousands of firearms and other weapons, would have been a prime target. With the help of five volunteers, a selection of high-powered rifles and plenty of ammo, Ellithorpe took to the roof for a few days of patrolling and safeguarding the business his father, Robert Ellithorpe, had established in 1953.

It was surreal, recalled Ellithorpe, an Army veteran, about that chaotic time in Los Angeles. “Here I am, a civilian, giving a patrol order. We stayed there all night long for a couple of nights.”

Then the 1994 earthquake hit. It lifted the San Fernando Valley more than eight inches and caused severe damage to much of Southern California. With his store in ruins, he once again armed himself and went to the roof, where he stayed perched for four days to guard from any civil unrest or rioting that might flare up. No shots were fired in either incident. And just a few years ago, while Ellithorpe, his wife, Ruth, their three daughters and son had been living here in Idaho for several years, robbers broke into the California store and took more than $200,000 in merchandise. Despite that, Ellithorpe still kept the business running, paid back customers whose guns were taken and, defying expert advice to the contrary, never filed for bankruptcy.

“We’ve had all kinds of weird things happen in the last 14 years,” said his wife.

Ask Ellithorpe, though, and he’ll tell you that’s just how you run a good business. And even with all the setbacks, “it just kind of strengthened our faith,” Ruth Ellithorpe added.

Business was a lot different back in 1953. Joe Ellithorpe’s dad could leave the store in his wife’s hands to go look at purchasing personal gun collections, and he didn’t have to think twice about leaving her alone.

“It was a whole period of time that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

Since then, the view for him from behind the gun-shop counter has been nothing short of a complete cultural shift. After his father sold him the business in 1977, Joe Ellithorpe and another partner took up the reins. All the while California was becoming increasingly liberal, creating a situation in which their specialty gun shop didn’t fit in as well as it had in the past.

After their first child was born and Ellithorpe had become the sole owner of the gun shop, the couple decided that a more family friendly environment focused on upholding conservative values would be a better for their family. Enter Coeur d’Alene and North Idaho.

“What is so refreshing about being here,” Ellithorpe explained, “is that North Idaho still holds onto the tenets of freedom that this country was founded on.”

Joe Ellithorpe still ran the Southern California landmark – where celebrities such as John Wayne, Mark Harmon and Sylvester Stallone frequented – from Idaho until he closed it in 2002. That put an end to nearly a decade of him commuting from Idaho to California for one week every month to run the Pony Express Sports Shop.

In Coeur d’Alene, the Ellithorpes found the ideal environment to re-establish the business.

Several weeks ago they opened Northwest Pony Express – the Inland Northwest’s incarnation of his father’s original shooting sports lifestyle shop. In a fitting location next to another outdoor sport shop, Orvis Northwest Outfitters, where a small pond on the grounds is used for fly-fishing demonstrations, the 1,600 square-foot gun shop opened for business. Like the original California Pony Express Sports Shop, the Northwest shop offers guns for sale as well as for consignment and appraisal.

“Really what we want to do is satisfy peoples’ needs to find something that they are looking for, or help them get rid of something that they don’t want anymore,” Ellithorpe said.

Sometimes, though, it’s just a good place for gun enthusiasts to go and talk shop.

“We can have people in here all day long and not do a lot of business,” he added.

Maintaining a business with integrity has been a founding principle for the Ellithorpe family since the California Pony Express doors opened in 1953. In order to establish a business in the service industry or fulfill a special niche, “your focus has to be ‘How can I solve my customer’s problem?’ Not, ‘How much money can I make in solving my customer’s problem?’ To me that is the absolute core of it all,” Joe said.

And, as if on cue to accentuate that point, the 68th Idahoan to have been a customer of Ellithorpe’s father in the original California shop came in to Northwest Pony Express to say hello.

“One of the blessings in the 13 weeks we’ve been open,” Ruth Ellithorpe said, “is how nice the people are.”

Her husband added, “To have a long-range impact on (the customer’s) sport like that, it really says something about how you’ve run your business.”