Wife Cari and I decided to unwind after a hectic Christmas by driving to my hometown of Paris IL today (12/26/2011) after dropping son and new daughter-in-law at Indianapolis International Airport for their return flight to Washington DC.
Paris, Illinois is the county seat of Edgar County, about halfway downstate from Chicago, bordering eastern Illinois on the Illinois/Indiana state line. I took my camera along to photograph what was left of many old dealership buildings in Paris and post them for those of you who have an interest in such things.
Our family moved to Paris in June 1953 when my Dad (left) and his brother Milton bought the Packard franchise. I was 7 years old. They added Nash right away to have mid- (Nash) and low- (Rambler) priced cars to sell. Here they are in May 1954 in front of their building at 141 East Court Street in Paris:
Here is the building today:
They joined the Studebaker dealer in June 1955 and moved to his larger building on North Central Avenue. Here is that Studebaker dealership circa 1953:
And here is that building today...or, rather, a photo taken from exactly the same place in Paris. Yes, the building was demolished about three years ago, I am sorry to say:
Other former dealership buildings around Paris are still being used. Directly across the street from the original Palma Motors (first photo, above) was the Chrysler-Plymouth dealer. Here is that building today:
The DeSoto-Plymouth dealer in Paris was D.R.Noonan. He welcomed Dad and Uncle Milt to town and was kind of a mentor for them early-on. Here is the DeSoto-Plymouth dealership building today on Paris' West Wood Street:
The Pontiac Dealer was Ray's Motor Sales. Here is his Pontiac dealership building today on North Main Street in Paris:
Paris, Illinois had an Edsel dealer for about 18 months. Today, here is the building in which it was located:
The strangest situation of all is the [non] Ford dealer in Paris. Long-time dealer Bob Gross built an all-new, state-of-the-art (and still very useful) dealership building out on the big east-west highway, U.S.150, in the late 1950s. It's still a nice place and big enough to be a good dealership.
When he retired, he sold it to (or it otherwise wound up in the hands of) a group of investors who proved to have, shall we say, inappropriate ties to nefarious business enterprises. Ford pulled their franchise and, today, the county seat in a large, prosperous Illinois farm county has had NO Ford dealer for about four years! As ridiculous as it sounds, the building stands today with all the signage intact:
On other matters, the small, single-island Shell Service Station where I first pumped gas at age 15 (no drivers license yet!) and sort-of worked on cars "commercially" still stands...well, kinda:
We've discussed here the disproportionately-large Post Offices built during the 1930s to keep people occupied, and Paris IL was no exception. The 1930s-era Paris Post Office is no longer used as a Post Office, and is directly to the east of Dad and Uncle Milt's dealership building shown up top with them and the 1954 Rambler out front:
Cari and I split an enormous breaded pork tenderloin sandwich at the home-town Main Street Cafe in downtown Paris and then headed back east across the state line to home in central Indiana (Brownsburg, NW of Indianapolis).
On the way across U.S.36, we passed through Rockville on the western edge of Indiana. If you lived in or around Rockville in the 1950s and were excited about seeing a new, 1955 Strato-Streak Pontiac V8, or maybe a 1959 Wide Track Wonder, you would have stopped here at the Rockville Pontiac dealership. The building has been an antique store for decades, although I distinctly remember when it was a Pontiac dealership:
Overall, we had a nice day winding down from a great Christmas while recording some history before it is lost to the elements...or wrecking ball. 'Hope you all had a Christmas as wonderful as ours, and Happy New Year. BP
Paris, Illinois is the county seat of Edgar County, about halfway downstate from Chicago, bordering eastern Illinois on the Illinois/Indiana state line. I took my camera along to photograph what was left of many old dealership buildings in Paris and post them for those of you who have an interest in such things.
Our family moved to Paris in June 1953 when my Dad (left) and his brother Milton bought the Packard franchise. I was 7 years old. They added Nash right away to have mid- (Nash) and low- (Rambler) priced cars to sell. Here they are in May 1954 in front of their building at 141 East Court Street in Paris:
Here is the building today:
They joined the Studebaker dealer in June 1955 and moved to his larger building on North Central Avenue. Here is that Studebaker dealership circa 1953:
And here is that building today...or, rather, a photo taken from exactly the same place in Paris. Yes, the building was demolished about three years ago, I am sorry to say:
Other former dealership buildings around Paris are still being used. Directly across the street from the original Palma Motors (first photo, above) was the Chrysler-Plymouth dealer. Here is that building today:
The DeSoto-Plymouth dealer in Paris was D.R.Noonan. He welcomed Dad and Uncle Milt to town and was kind of a mentor for them early-on. Here is the DeSoto-Plymouth dealership building today on Paris' West Wood Street:
The Pontiac Dealer was Ray's Motor Sales. Here is his Pontiac dealership building today on North Main Street in Paris:
Paris, Illinois had an Edsel dealer for about 18 months. Today, here is the building in which it was located:
The strangest situation of all is the [non] Ford dealer in Paris. Long-time dealer Bob Gross built an all-new, state-of-the-art (and still very useful) dealership building out on the big east-west highway, U.S.150, in the late 1950s. It's still a nice place and big enough to be a good dealership.
When he retired, he sold it to (or it otherwise wound up in the hands of) a group of investors who proved to have, shall we say, inappropriate ties to nefarious business enterprises. Ford pulled their franchise and, today, the county seat in a large, prosperous Illinois farm county has had NO Ford dealer for about four years! As ridiculous as it sounds, the building stands today with all the signage intact:
On other matters, the small, single-island Shell Service Station where I first pumped gas at age 15 (no drivers license yet!) and sort-of worked on cars "commercially" still stands...well, kinda:
We've discussed here the disproportionately-large Post Offices built during the 1930s to keep people occupied, and Paris IL was no exception. The 1930s-era Paris Post Office is no longer used as a Post Office, and is directly to the east of Dad and Uncle Milt's dealership building shown up top with them and the 1954 Rambler out front:
Cari and I split an enormous breaded pork tenderloin sandwich at the home-town Main Street Cafe in downtown Paris and then headed back east across the state line to home in central Indiana (Brownsburg, NW of Indianapolis).
On the way across U.S.36, we passed through Rockville on the western edge of Indiana. If you lived in or around Rockville in the 1950s and were excited about seeing a new, 1955 Strato-Streak Pontiac V8, or maybe a 1959 Wide Track Wonder, you would have stopped here at the Rockville Pontiac dealership. The building has been an antique store for decades, although I distinctly remember when it was a Pontiac dealership:
Overall, we had a nice day winding down from a great Christmas while recording some history before it is lost to the elements...or wrecking ball. 'Hope you all had a Christmas as wonderful as ours, and Happy New Year. BP
We've got to quit saying, 
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