The Studebaker Shop in Harrington

The Studebaker Shop in Harrington Wa

By Nicolette Reames

      

          Transportation is the key to survival for small towns, and Harrington is no different, depending on first horses, then trains, then automobiles to bring in visitors and residents.  The many businesses that once stood on 9 North Third Street tell the history of the changing face of the automobile business in Harrington. The Studebaker shop is the most current business occupying this piece of property in a long line of automobile businesses in Harrington.  It started out as a livery stable, most likely that of the O.K. Livery Stables owned by the McInnis brothers.  When the livery burned down in 1916, a new building was built on the land, and the first business to occupy it was the Harrington Garage. 

            By the 1940’s it had changed to the Harrington Ford Motor Co, with W.B. Hose acting as mechanic.  The business continued to change and by the 1960’s it had transitioned into the Harrington Motor Co. & Ford Sales with Howard Hose as mechanic.  By the 1980’s the building had become the Grange Automotive Service, also known as the Grange Auto Service Garage.  When that went out of business, the building sat empty for a while before A.J. Barth bought and renovated it in 2011 for his Studebaker shop.  Barth now fixes up run down Studebakers and services old fords, giving a nod to the history of the building.

            The popular shift from horses to motor cars also affected other businesses in Harrington. Stone pillars were built on either side of the north-central highway in 1930 on the approach to Harrington to welcome visitors. In the 1960’s the first drive-in restaurant, the Buy-n-Bye, was built on the north end of Harrington, along with a Chevron Station nearby. In August of 1970 Harrington received its first blinking red stop light, installed at the corner of Main and Third Street, where highways 28 and 23 intersected, in the hopes that it would be more noticeable than the stop sign that had been there previously.

            As the shift to motor cars had an effect on Harrington, so did the highway changes.  Designated in 1913, State Route 28 was one of the first cross state highways in Washington. Also known as the Sunset Highway, it runs right through Harrington and brought with it much needed visitors to the small town.  In 1923 it became State Route 7 and was already competing with Route 2 through Davenport as a major roadway for the small towns that littered it landscape.  The businesses in Harrington reflected the change, and by the 1950s and 1960s, Interstate 90 was created and redirecting traffic around Harrington, taking it off the beaten path.

Ford Ad. Image Courtesy of Larry Cebula.

Harrington Garage. Photo courtesy of the town of Harrington.

O.K. Livery Stables Advertisement in 1903. Photo Courtesy of the town of Harrington.

Advertisements for Harrington Garage. Image courtesy of Laura Glasgow.

Sources for this stop: Harrington 100 Years; Historic Revival in Harrington, The Spokesman Review, Oct 6 2011; Harrington in the Heart; Washington State Department of Transportation.

Civil Wargasm...and you know, other stuff.

            This week’s book reading was Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horowitz, pages 145-281, covering chapters 7-10. Chapter 7, Tennessee At the Foote of the Master, Horowitz tells us about his visit with Shelby Foote, known for his writings on the Civil War.  During the interview, Foote talks about his own personal experiences and how they correlate with the Civil War, giving his opinions on race, the confederate flag, and his admiration of Nathan Bedford Forest, the Klu Klux Klan’s first Imperial Wizard.  Foote prefers imperfect Forest over virtous Robert E. Lee because “I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.” (p 156)

Shelby Foote. Photo courtesy of University Press of Mississippi

            Chapter 8, Tennessee The Ghost Marks of Shiloh, is about Horowitz’s visit to the battlefield at Shiloh.  He met travelers with personal family history with the battle and those who just had a passion for it.  One of the men he met, Bryson Powers, said “If they’d ever had a chance to talk instead of shoot each other, maybe that whole bloody mess would have turned out different.” (p 164) Horowitz also met Stacy Allen, the park historian, who spoke about the park’s history, revisionism, and tendency for people to forget the gruesome realities of war.  Another interesting character he met was Wolfgang Hochbruck, from the University of Stuttgart in Germany, whose interest in the Civil War also started when he was a child.

            Chapter 9, Mississippi The Minié Ball Pregnancy, tells of Horowitz’s trip to Vicksburg and his visit with Joe Gerache, a Civil War enthusiast specializing in the medical tools and knowledge of that time. Gerache’s most prized collection piece is the 9000 pound Parrott Gun, which was the Confederacy’s riverside cannon, he found in flower garden on land he purchased.  Horowitz’s makes sure to note that some of what we think is factual is actually made up of both fact and hearsay, like the story of a minie ball that passed through the reproductive organs of a young man then hit a young woman, resulting in her pregnancy.  He also remarks on the separation of black and white history of the Civil War, and how that is still in effect today. “Everywhere, it seemed, I had to explore two pasts and two presents; one white, one black, separate and unreconcilable. The past had poisoned the present and the present, in turn, now poisoned the remembrance of things past.” (p 208) Chapter 10, Virginia and Beyond The Civil Wargasm, is about the authors week long power-tour with Robert Lee Hodge through Civil War sites, dressed in Civil War garb and eating similar food of the day.  They hit as many sites as quickly as they could, keeping record of where they went and what they did. 

Civil War Field Hospital at Battle of Savage Station. Photo courtesy of  Sonofthesouth.net.

            The video of Ken Burns talking about the road to making his Civil War documentary was eye opening on what it took to compile historical photos without the use of internet, and the handling of a controversial subject.  He talked about trying to convince sponsors to support his project that was conceived to be too long on too broad a subject to retain people’s attention.  He also spoke about how documentaries have become a lucrative way of presenting history.