Tales of 153 North Franklin

Tales of 153 North Franklin
Written February 13, 2020

Some portions have already appeared on this site.
Other credited photos have been obtained from Facebook.

Richwood, the central Ohio village where I grew up, was once sufficiently “urban” to merit an “interurban” connection.

Wooden trolley cars operated on an 18-mile route from the city of Delaware, through the mineral-water resort called Magnetic Springs, and then on to Richwood with its Opera House.

Lynne Ledley

Franklin Street is quite wide, so the ties and rails and ballast could be laid right down the middle.

The photos on the left, apparently from 1906, are captioned “Building of the Columbus, Magnetic Springs and Northern Strang-Electric Railway, which runs from Columbus to Delaware, Magnetic Springs, Richwood, LaRue, Kenton, and Lima, Ohio, where it intersects with the FWVW&LT Co. for Fort Wayne, Ind.”

That may have been the original plan, but I don't think this particular railway ever went farther north than Richwood. Nor did it go farther south than Delaware. However, in that city a Richwood resident could board the Columbus, Delaware, and Marion line for connections to anywhere in the nation.

“Strang-Electric Railway” refers to William B. Strang, who had very recently invented a gas-electric railroad car to connect Kansas City to his new suburb of Overland Park. However, the Richwood trolley was not a “Strang,” as it drew its electricity not from an onboard engine/generator (like a diesel locomotive) but from an overhead wire.

After making its stops in Richwood, the Delaware & Magnetic Springs Electric Rail Road's trolley car turned around to head back towards Delaware. Actually I suspect it didn't make a U-turn; the motorman could have merely walked to the other end of the car and reversed the motor to head back in the opposite direction. Or if it was late in the day, the car might have just parked in the middle of the street for the night.

Present-day councilman Reddy Brown says the end of the line in Richwood was near the intersection of Oak Street. That's where Franklin Street narrows, and that's where an old map locates the freight house.

Reddy Brown

When I was a child, I remember hearing that the building on this corner had previously been one of Richwood's livery stables.

I also heard that after airplane pilots started trying to find their way around the country, a navigational aid was painted on the black roof: an arrow pointing north, plus RICHWOOD to identify the town.

Next to the freight house was a hotel, complete with steam heat and electric lights for the convenience of the traveling public. Apparently the name was actually the Cottage Hotel. Notice the largest of the trees out front; we'll see it again later. Notice that the north half of Lot #212 is open space; we'll see used vehicles parked there later.

As the years went by, automobiles became the preferred form of transportation and there was no longer need for the interurban. Rail service had been reduced to one round trip per day, and it was discontinued entirely in 1933.

A couple of years later, Paul M. Curl began selling Chevrolets in Richwood. By 1939, he was joined by Jay L. Evans as his salesman and assistant manager, and early in 1950 the two of them incorporated the dealership as the Curl-Evans Chevrolet Company.

Where was that garage? Jay's grandson Wayne writes on Facebook, “Originally, it was located at Pop's Pure Oil.” I think that was around 120 North Franklin Street.

But a new location was in the plans. Later in 1950, Curl and Evans moved to 153 North Franklin — the aforementioned corner of Franklin and Oak.

Wayne Evans

On July 27, 1950, the Richwood Gazette reported that “Curl Evans Chevrolet Co. is constructing a new show room and garage on North Franklin Street, just north of the Masonic Temple. The building is 50 feet wide and 140 feet in depth, constructed of concrete block. It will be fireproof and have a new modern glass front.”

Actually, it proved to be not completely fireproof. Also, only the front portion was new. The service department (which would catch fire first) was an extensive remodeling of a former building, originally a livery stable that later sold farm implements. To bring cars up from the shop into the showroom, there was a short ramp between the offices and the restrooms (the small windows on the right).

A big black steel pole supported a neon-lighted vertical CHEVROLET sign in front of the garage, where it could be seen all the way down Franklin Street. A portion of the Cottage Hotel is visible beyond what I'll call the Sign Pole.

I notice another neon sign in the center-right window. In January 1950, Chevrolet had introduced PowerGlide, the first automatic transmission for low-priced cars.

It eliminated the need for a clutch, but there were only two speeds and the shifting wasn't automatic. Once a driver reached about 35 mph, he had to move a lever from Low to Drive.

The Gazette continued: “The show room will be large enough to display three cars with ample room for office space and a large parts department. The garage and service department will be housed at the rear of the show room and will contain 5,000 square feet of floor space for repair work, etc. A new hydraulic hoist has been installed and several new pieces of equipment will facilitate the shop work. The grand opening is expected to take place around the 15th of August.”

Wayne Evans says that by 1952, his grandfather Jay Evans had sold his portion of the business to Paul Curl, making it simply P.M. Curl Chevrolet

Charles Lyn Barry

“I'm not sure how well they got along at the end. He said Paul took two vacations a year; each one was six months long.”

Paul soon decided to take a permanent vacation by retiring. He put the business up for sale, whereupon the Chevrolet franchise was granted to my father Vernon M. Thomas. He had been working at a dealership in Newark, Ohio.

Our family moved to Richwood in late 1952. This snapshot, taken 3½ years later, shows Margaret and Paul Curl on the left and my father on the right.

In 1985, my father wrote this for Family Heritage: Union County, Ohio, 1986.

“On 13 October 1952 I became the operator of the Chevrolet dealership in Richwood, known as Vernon M. Thomas Chevrolet, having purchased the business from Paul M. Curl. At the time there were eight employees. On 1 September 1955 the Oldsmobile franchise was added to the business. The business was located at 153 North Franklin Street and consisted of a remodeled livery stable (Cushman Brothers) with no parking space except inside the building or on the street. In 1953 the Veterans of Foreign Wars building (formerly the Cottage Hotel) was purchased and as funds became available, gradually became a paved parking lot in 1962.”

As a bored young boy, I would sometimes wander out the showroom door with its GMAC Financing decal. I'd walk to the Sign Pole and circle it, stepping carefully on the square concrete base while hanging onto the pole with one hand and avoiding kicking the switch that would turn off the neon.

Kay Armstrong Unverzagt

By 1953, the showroom was rearranged so a car could be displayed in the big left window, and a metal awning was installed over the front door. Most importantly, there was a new name on the façade!

The colorized photo below shows that by the time the 1956 Chevys arrived, an Oldsmobile sign had been added to the Pole. Behind the big old tree where the Cottage Hotel had been, the OK Used Cars lot was still gravel at that time.

Notice the banner: the 1956 models were ON DISPLAY NOW! My school classmate Lynne Ledley, who had first met me in kindergarten when our family arrived in Richwood, recalls “the open house reveal of the cars (seems like it was in the fall) and Tom brought us the kids giveaway items for each of us!!! It was a big night in town that drew a big crowd and some would test drive the new models!”

The following years brought us much properity and happiness. We sold as many as 50 new cars every month, including many to customers in the nearby city of Marion (15 times Richwood's size).

Charles Lyn Barry

Here's an aerial view of the garage from the opposite direction. A and B are houses on the other side of Oak Street, with addresses something like 159 and 157 North Franklin. H is the former site of the Cottage Hotel, M is the Masonic Temple, and E is the original location (I think) of Curl-Evans Chevrolet.

Unfortunately, in 1964 a great fire leveled the building at 153 North Franklin Street. But it didn't destroy the Sign Pole, and it didn't destroy Vernon M. Thomas Chevrolet & Oldsmobile. My father relocated the residents of A and B ...

... razed the houses, and erected in their place a brand-new building twice as large as the old garage.

All the printed material read “153 North Franklin Street,” so the business retained that address, though strictly speaking it referred to what was now only a parking lot with a Sign Pole.

My father retired in 1973, and the Mills family took over the dealership. Sadly, small automobile dealerships in small towns are a slowly dying breed. Some 35 years later, Mills Chevrolet-Oldsmobile-Pontiac went out of business.

But happily, the village of Richwood bought the building for its municipal offices and police station. The address of this showcase is still given as 153 North Franklin Street.

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