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When Donald Sloane founded Miller’s Surplus in Tucson, Arizona on September 22, 1950, surplus was cheap and abundant. The government had huge quantities that it was eager to get rid of. A retailer might order a case filled with 60 canteens, and the government would throw in an additional half case, free, Sloane recalled 60 years later.

“The stuff came into the military bases, and they would sell whatever they didn’t want,” he said.

Times have changed. Today, surplus is scarcer, and army/navy stores have long since diversified their inventories. Miller’s, which will celebrate its 60th anniversary in September, has adjusted to the social and economic changes and, along the way, become a Tucson institution.

A modern army/navy store can carry virtually anything, not just items identified as military, Sloane said. “You can’t just sell surplus and survive. Our customers tell us what they want, and we obtain it, and that is how we have kept growing. We have backpacks, hunting boots, Carhartt and Dickies and BDUs. It is the combination of everything put together that makes an army/navy store.”

The attack on America on 9/11 produced a watershed in the company’s history. Miller’s upgraded, refurbishing and repainting both the interior and exterior of the store and expanding merchandise lines.

“We realized the world was changing,” said sales and marketing manager George Landa.

“The idea of being an old surplus-type store with merchandise lying around in heaps and piles was incompatible.”

Miller’s added a MASH (Miller’s Army Surplus Headquarters) room dedicated to WWII veterans and brought in a veterans’ group for the inaugural ceremony. The city of Tucson responded with a commemorative plaque honoring all WWII veterans. The MASH room houses Miller’s military inventory, including backpacks, duffle bags, ACUs, BDUs, digital camo, classic vintage woodland and Vietnam era surplus.

The story of Miller’s Surplus begins in 1947 when Sam Miller arrived in Tucson from New York City and opened a furniture store. Donald Sloane, a U.S. Army veteran with a college degree in retailing, married Miller’s daughter, Eileen. Uninterested in the furniture business, Sloane decided to put his knowledge of military gear to civilian use and opened a surplus store next to his father-in-law’s store. In time, the surplus business eclipsed that of the furniture store and eventually took over its space.

Miller’s outgrew its original location in 1966 and moved to its present site, an 18,000 square foot store in downtown Tucson at 406 North 6th Avenue.

In 2008 Miller’s opened a second Tucson store at 1537 South Craycroft to serve the population of Tucson’s east side.

“Tucson has a terrible public transportation system and it is hard to get around the city. People from the east side do not come downtown unless they have to,” Landa explained.

He noted that soldiers from Fort Huachuca and from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base would travel to the downtown store in groups of three or four.

“After a while they would get their wives and their girlfriends to come with them, but we realized that we were neglecting the east side where the military bases are located,” Landa said.

The 7,000 square foot store is about a mile from the bases and features almost every product in the main store, except in smaller quantities.

Miller’s camping department features a full range of Coleman accessories, as well as tents, sleeping bags and backpacks. Although located in the midst of a desert, Tucson is surrounded by mountains, extensively hiked by backpackers and campers.

Miller’s also does a steady trade with both local police agencies and with the U.S. Border Patrol. The latter provides a strong customer base for such items as flashlights, Danner boots and Woolrich jackets.

“They like Woolrich because of the way the jackets are designed for breathability and with features like ripstop fabric and inner pockets,” said Landa.

Miller’s has long enjoyed a strong customer base among Native American Indian tribes and has been extending its marketing to the Hispanic population. Landa notes that Sloane was one of the first merchants in the area to extend credit to tribe members, thereby cementing a multi-generational relationship.

The Hispanic market has been steadily increasing with customers including members of the Mexican Army who purchase black BDUs.

Miller’s sells more work boots than any other store in Tucson, said Landa. Major brands include Georgia, Wolverine, Caterpillar and Irish Setter. Uniform boot brands include Magnum, Danner, Bates and Rocky.

The downtown store has developed into a complete Carhartt destination shop,and has been a recipient of the Hamilton Carhartt annual award as the top Carhartt distributor in the U.S.

In addition to renovating its building and adding more brands after 9/11, Miller’s decided to give back more to the community. The business hosts an annual bike show to raise money for local charities.

He claimed that Arizona’s controversial immigration law is hurting Tucson’s economy, with fewer conventions coming to the city.

“This is not the time to cause people to lose their jobs,” he said.

Miller’s customers come from all walks of life. Landa recalls receiving an order for 80 cases of MREs from a survivalist living in the desert. “He was bunkering down for the end of the world. I offered to deliver the cases to him,” said Landa, who recalls driving on long deserted winding roads to the grounds of an old winery where the customer lived in a mobile home. Next to the home was cement shed he had built with a bunker below the ground.

“He wanted to pay me with gold, but I said I could only accept cash or a check. He didn’t have a check but he went inside the winery and reached into a hole in the wall and came back with cash.”

Miller’s has also been the host to a more playful end of the world scenario that had its inception when film director James Arnett came into the store to buy camo. Arnett, at the time, was involved with a movie script based on The Last Man, a novel by Mary Shelley, who is better known as the author of Frankenstein.

The movie was an update of Shelley’s 19th century novel, setting the story in the U.S. instead of Europe and the destruction of civilization from germ warfare rather than an outbreak of the plague. In the film, the last man left on earth is living in Arizona where he is hunted by zombies.

“I said to Arnett, if the last man is living in Arizona, he should be living in our store because we have the MREs and survival gear,” Landa recalled.

Arnett was intrigued by the idea and worked Miller’s into the film, spending two weeks shooting at the store.

The zombies find the last man in hiding and burn down the store, said Landa, who had a role as one of the zombies.

Fortunately, in real life Miller’s Surplus remains intact and continues to serve Tucson’s residents and visitors, as it has for the six decades.