The first 3 issues of Wood News were published before Highland Hardware even came into existence. In 1974 Chris and Sharon Bagby, then recent Georgia Tech graduates, became managers of King Hardware Company's branch store on Piedmont Avenue in Atlanta. By coincidence this King Hardware store happened to be a dealer for the Shopsmith combination woodworking machine.

As the Bagbys found ways to increase Shopsmith sales, and after introducing the sale of hardwood lumber, the store began to attract a growing community of woodworkers. In 1977 the Bagbys and their staff published a 4-page newsletter they called Wood News. Response to it was enthusiastic. They published two more issues before deciding in 1978 to resign from King Hardware and start their own hardware store.

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Shopsmith was beginning to open its own retail stores nationwide and told the Bagbys they were not interested in making Highland Hardware a Shopsmith dealer. However they soon connected with Garrett Wade Company of New York, the U.S. importer of Swiss-made Inca Tools, and in 1978 began selling Inca tablesaws, bandsaws and planer-jointers. A side-benefit of becoming an Inca dealer was the opportunity to purchase wholesale any of the hand tools in Garrett Wade's vast and beautiful catalog. Highland Hardware quickly became a local Atlanta source for Record and ECE hand planes, Marples chisels, Tyzack handsaws and many other fine woodworking tools. They also continued to sell hardwood lumber and established a small millwork shop in the basement of the store.

In 1979, becoming aware of a growing demand for woodworking classes, Chris published the first issue of Woodman, "A Newsletter Devoted to the Woodworker and his Craft," in which the first two Highland Hardware seminars were announced. Four more issues were published in 1980, announcing new classes and advertising the store's growing line of woodworking hand and power tools.

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