Washington's Ford Dealership
There was a Ford automobile dealership in Washington for ninety years. It followed the general trend of the town, starting in the nerve center of the Square, then venturing outward to the western frontier.
In May 1910, Peter Garber and his brother Emanuel opened a Ford auto dealership business on the southeast corner of the Square, in the area that is now a parking lot. At that time automobiles were not common. There was an average of approximately five cars for every 1,000 people in the United States at that time. Washington’s population was 1,530 in the 1910 U.S. Census.
In 1912, Peter Garber and Al Gundy bought property on the south side of Peoria Street close to the square. This location is where the eastern half of the Lindy’s Supermarket parking lot is today. They purchased the land from Wilde Stormer.
Work commenced on the garage quickly by William Smith and he constructed the garage at a cost of $3,000. The garage opened that same year.
Originally known as the Peoria Street Garage, in 1915 Al Gundy left the partnership and was replaced by Ed Habecker, and it became the Garber & Habecker Garage.
In 1920 Habecker separated from the partnership to start his own dealership on Walnut Street, and for short time Peter Garber enlisted a new partner in Roy Kinsinger.
By 1924 Garber was on his own, and it became the Peter Garber Garage. Business was good with the rise of the automobile’s popularity, and in 1930 Garber added three gasoline pumps to the front of the business. There was also a name change: the Garber Motor Company.
These changes coincided with a silent partner, Henry Vogelsang who had joined Garber. Vogelsang had started with the company in 1924 as a salesman.
In 1938 Garber & Vogelsang added the Lincoln-Zephyr model to his Ford inventory and in 1939, added Mercury automobiles as well.
In 1940, at the age of 74, Peter Garber retired from the business. Ralph Belsly purchased Garber’s interest and became Vogelsang’s partner, but the business remained the Garber Motor Company.
In 1958 Vogelsang and Belsly sold the dealership to Walz & Wieckhoff, a long-time dealership from Morton. They appointed Emanuel “Solly” Ackerman to run the dealership, now to be called Colonial Ford. The transfer took place September 29, 1958.
Colonial Ford was cramped in their current location, and with the westward movement of the town beginning, Colonial Ford felt the pull. In 1963 they opened a used car lot at 1224 Peoria Street, the current site of Dairy Queen, with eventual plans to move the entire dealership to the west end of the city.
On November 1, 1964, Buck Strode and Bill Walz purchased the dealership, and they quickly demolished the building near the square and moved westward. The area on Peoria Street became a parking lot for a short time before Lindy’s constructed their grocery store.
Now named S&W Ford, in August 1965 the business contracted with Del Construction who began work on their new facility at 1800 Washington Road across from Hillcrest Golf Course. They held their grand opening May 6 & 7, 1966.
In 1967 Strode took over the business by himself, and it became Buck Strode Ford. One of Strode’s employees was a young salesman named Gary Uftring.
In 1969 the dealership was purchased by John Bearce, who had been a dealer in Wisconsin. Bearce was a showman. For the grand opening in July 1969, he brought in an Indy car driver and a Playboy Bunny.
Bearce’s tenure as a Ford dealer in Washington was successful by every measure, and when his former employee Gary Uftring went off to build his own dealership, their combined “Car Wars” commercials were a yearly conversation piece. Bearce knew how to get people’s attention.
John Bearce moved his Ford dealership to East Peoria in 1992. He maintained a used car outlet at the site until it was destroyed by the tornado in 2013.