Historic Hood River
Harry’s New Garage
5-15-2013
Notes
Harry Dewitt poses proudly in front of his new garage in May 1918. I suspect his car is new too.
The address is 215 Cascade, now the Columbia Center For the Arts. We saw it during the same era in this image.
Rawhyde
Interesting. Looks like a Model T, but the steering wheel is on the wrong side. Note there is no door on the right front side, which was typical for the driver’s side. Those hand-crank starters (below the radiator) were a real bear.
l.e.
Crown Oil was also a new fledgling business. It began in 1917.
I can remember what it was like when our family got its first TV. Can you imagine the excitement when a family got their first automobile?
My mother in law told about, when she was a little girl, riding to Long Beach, Washington with a family who had just bought a new Model T.
She said the trip took forever.
db
Looks like some sort of strap going from the folded down windshield, around the radiator cap and back to the other side of the windshield. Any idea what that is for?
db
Rawhyde, I hadn’t realized that early Model Ts had the steering wheel on the right-hand side. I wonder when it became standard to put it on the left?
Rawhyde
Oops, my confusion, I was thinking of a Pierce Arrow that drove on the right.
The model T did have its reverse on a floor pedal and, because the brakes were so bad, you would use both the brakes and the reverse to stop if you really needed to.
Jeffrey Bryant
The Hood River Glacier, September 17, 1908
Incorporate Auto Company
A company to be known as the Bone-Brock-DeWitt Co., has been incorporated to sell automobile supplies and will do business with its headquarters at Hood River. The members of the company are C. R. Bone, Clay Brock and Harry DeWitt. It is the intention to secure suitable quarters for garage and to handle all kinds of automobile supplies and do general repairing. The Bone-Brock-DeWitt Company will also be agents for the new Everett – Metzger – Flanders car, which will soon be put on the markets in Oregon. Their territory includes Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam and Morrow counties, and they will exhibit in these counties on the arrival of six of the new machines which are expected here in October.
Dale Nicol
The car shown is a "Center Door" Model-T.