Of Hillmans, Ramblers and auto history

Ah, summertime and the open road -- A time to pile the kids into the car and head out for big adventures. Americans still travel by automobile today but not like we did in the 1950s, when gasoline was 30 cents a gallon or less.

America’s love affair with the automobile stretches farther back than the ‘50s, though. We’ve been wheeling it around town and across the country for generations. And so, in this season of the Great Summer Vacation, we present a tribute to that ubiquitous mode of transportation with an eclectic assembly of automobile ephemera in the collection of rare and unusual items at Lighthouse Books, ABAA.

This is clearly a transportation enthusiast’s dream. Here are sales pieces, brochures and other ephemera from the 1950s and earlier. There is a decided Anglophile bent to the collection. Along with the Chryslers and Plymouths and Fords and Nash Ramblers is the Hillman, a British car that was manufactured from 1907. Chrysler took over the company in 1967 and continued the Hillman brand for nine years. You can still find Hillmans among car collections, even in the United States.

In this collection, too, are early Rolls-Royces, Maxwells, and Duesenbergs. The Duesenberg was a luxury car manufactured in the Teens, Twenties and Thirties. It was the fastest car available in America and it was also the most expensive, qualities which led to the development of the slang phrase,"It's a Duesy!"

There’s more automobile history here, too. The collection is a veritable automobile museum in paper. Take the 1936 LaFayette, for example. Once a luxury marquee, LaFayette by ’36 was a low-priced sedan made by the Nash Motors, which had acquired the company in 1924 and converted its plant to produce Ajax cars (Ajax – now there’s another name you don’t hear often associated with cars).

Perhaps the most unusual item in the collection is material about the Crosley FarmOroad, a vehicle that was designed for multiple purposes. It could be used on the farm like a tractor for plowing, mowing, and cultivation. It could be used like a truck for towing and hauling. And when the day's work was done, it could be used on the road to take the family to town. “Twice the work of a work horse,” says the sales brochure, “Twice the speed of a race horse.” Hmmm. For some reason the idea never caught on.

And finally, there’s even a July 1934 edition of the Automobile Trade Journal with a humorous illustration by Charles Hargens, who painted covers for Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, Farm Journal, Country Gentleman, Boy’s Life and a magazine called The Open Road for Boys.

In Tampa, sources of civic pride

Tampa’s civic leaders were apparently quite proud of their brand new concrete Lafayette Street Bridge when it opened in 1913. They were proud, too, of the Tampa Bay Hotel, a magnificent jewel of a resort that opened in 1891.

A remarkable panoramic photograph showing the bridge and Tampa Bay Hotel it is in the collection of rare and unusual items at Lighthouse Books, ABAA. It is hand-tinted in muted blues and greens. It is unclear exactly when the photo was taken–perhaps in the Teens or the Twenties–but it shows a city very different from today’s teeming metropolis.

A pair of street cars wisk across the strand, and a few automobiles can be seen. But it was clearly a time of transition. Horse-drawn buggies are also seen clip-clopping their way across the Hillsborough River.

At the time it was dedicated, the new Lafayette Street Bridge represented a leap for the city into the modern era. Two previous bridges at the location had been built of iron. This one was concrete–and sturdy. Bursting with civic pride, city leaders organized a huge celebration in February 1914 to coincide with the Gasparilla festival. It was complete with a parade and gala ceremonies largely for the city’s elite. 

The dedication took place on February 23, 1914, with Mayor D.B. McKay reminding citizens that it was his administration that finally brought this third bridge project to completion. The second one had been opened in 1896, and had been beset with problems almost from the beginning. It took many years of political indecision and voter reluctance, though, before city leaders finally got a bond issue passed to build a new bridge, so citizens struggled with the old one.

The gala celebration belied the turmoil that preceded the building of the bridge, including a lawsuit that ended up in the Florida Supreme Court, fierce debates over the cost of the project and numerous technical problems. A legend on the photo proudly proclaims that the bridge was erected “at a cost of $250,000.”

The Tampa Bay Hotel, built a couple of decades earlier, had been the crown jewel of railroad tycoon Henry B. Plant’s railroad, steamship and hotel empire. When Plant died in 1899, he left his holdings to his grandson but the will was nullified in a New York court and the empire was eventually broken up.

By the time of this photograph, the City of Tampa was operating the minaret-bedecked Tampa Bay Hotel, which it did until 1930. A legend on the photo proudly proclaims “The Tampa Bay Hotel, the finest Municipally owned Hotel in the World, valued at $5,000,000.”

To the left can be seen boxcars of the Atlantic Coast Line railroad resting on rail spurs beside the river.  After Plant’s death in 1899, the company acquired his railroad holdings.

Beyond the bridge, the Tampa Electric plant spews smoke into the air from its solitary stack. TECO not only provided electric power to homes, it also operated one of the electric trolly companies in town and installed street lighting in downtown to create a “White Way,” an area bustling with evening activity and a source of great civic pride.

Many of the facts in this report came from the research of Tampa historian Lucy D. Jones for her excellent Master’s thesis, Tampa’s Lafayette Street Bridge: Building a New South City (2006).