Arthur Johnson was my great grandfather and Everett was my grandfather. My family owned the building when I was very little and I remember a young couple who purchased it and started a body shop. They no longer own the body shop but we remain friends.
Sure is a different world we live in these days. Imagine a dealership with one lone mechanic! Pretty neat bit of history.
That small town has only one stop light, a convince store and a rather busy liquor store. It’s so hard to imagine it had a car dealership, hotels and many stores/shops. It’s having a small resurgence with folks leaving the city. We sold my father’s house very fast and for a good price. My father lived in that house for over 80 years!
Thanks for sharing that !! I'm a small town guy (54 years same house) having issues with it becoming not so small anymore. I wish I had that building !!
Great story and thanks for sharing. I chuckled when reading about buying that old Dodge for $25. My first car was a 1953 Plymouth I bought for $35.00. I also remember the village where I went to high school. There were 3 car dealerships and there were less than 1000 people in that village. None are there today but I still remember 2 of them in the 60's.
We used to have the same here until corporate America set rules to dealers that if you did not sell x amount of units you were not a dealer. The area my wife is from has no population and even in the late 80s had both Chevy and Mercury dealerships. Those were gone in the mid 90s. Had to go to millinockett or Houlton for other brands but people squalked at the half hour drive.
