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Brewster Motor Company in the Midway Garage building, 323 Denver Avenue, Fort Lupton, CO, ca. 1920. (Photo courtesy of Ray Camenga)

Given the pervasiveness of automobiles today, it’s interesting to look back at the introduction of the automobile to Fort Lupton in the early 1900’s and the subsequent development of businesses catering to the automobile owner, such as car dealerships, filling stations and garages.    

Before there were car dealerships, individuals ordered cars directly from the factory, and back then the appearance of a new car in town was big news.  New car owners might find themselves being quizzed by others trying to decide what type of car to buy.

The livery, a precursor of today’s parking lot and car rental agency, was a place where overnight travelers could board their horses or where a person could rent horses and horse-drawn vehicles such as wagons or buggies.    Given the importance of these establishments for people’s transportation needs back then, it’s not surprising that livery owners began to receive inquiries about renting cars and thereby were first introduced to opportunities in the automobile trade.   It was not unusual for livery owners to accommodate the transition to motorized vehicles by establishing automotive garages on their sites.    

One Lupton business that wasn’t a livery but began dealing in motorized vehicles in 1911 was the Philip and Allsebrook Hardware Store on the southwest corner of Denver Avenue and 4th Street (the building which now houses the “A Natural Way Wellness Center”).  They specialized in selling Model 32 Buick Roadsters and Excelsior motorcycles.  (The 18-mile motorcycle race featured in that year’s Tomato Day festivities was evidence of increasing public interest in motorized transport.)  The first business fully dedicated to selling cars may have been the Fort Lupton Motor Company, established in 1916 or earlier, which sold Ford cars and was managed by a gentleman named Ed Camp. 

Early Auto Maintenance

I came across a 1909 news account in the Greeley Tribune about a group of Greeley Commercial Club business boosters visiting Fort Lupton and other Weld County towns by car on October 1st of that year.  Although the trip, which was over 100 miles in length, was mostly successful, the mechanical problems they encountered along the way underscore the advances that have been made in the reliability of cars over the last 100+ years.   

The booster contingent that day traveled in eleven automobiles, departing Greeley at 8:05 a.m. and accompanied by machinist Harold McCreery in the role of mechanic.  The entourage arrived on-time at Evans and Lasalle, but around Peckham, booster Charles Lofgren started experiencing tire trouble—perhaps he got a flat. Then, somewhere between Gilcrest and Platteville, booster C.A. Lawrence’s carburetor got “full of mud instead of gasoline,” which probably necessitated assistance from McCreery.  Lofgren apparently got his tire fixed, for he caught up with the group at Platteville just as they were leaving for Fort Lupton. 

Upon their arrival in Fort Lupton at 11:00 a.m., the Greeley boosters were warmly welcomed by a crowd of Fort Lupton boosters, followed, I imagine, by a round of hearty handshakes and backslaps.  When the shaking and slapping was done, the group was escorted to a banquet at Hotel Lupton, which sat on the northwest corner of 4th and Main.  There were sixty-five at the banquet table, and they enjoyed the food prepared by the Fort Lupton Booster Club.  After some speeches, including remarks by Colorado state senator W. L. Clayton, the cavalcade was off to visit Frederick.   

After concluding their boosterism in Frederick, the group’s departure to Dacono was delayed in order to repair the “steering gear” in Mr. Decker’s car.    Arriving in Dacono, driver John McCutcheon “went into the town so fast he broke the front spring of his car.”  After repairs were made, the group set out for Mead at 3:00, so far behind schedule they decided they would skip stops at Erie and Rinn (the latter was a small town located about ten miles southeast of Longmont).   (Road conditions could be a problem, too – on the way to Mead, C. F. Bell, who was driving the pilot car, “jammed his machine on a high ridge in the center of the road,” requiring the assistance of McCreery to free it up.  This delayed the group another ten minutes.) 

The group arrived at Mead at 4:20 p.m., but joining them late were Charles Lofgren, who  had to stop to pump up a tire, and a man named Ferguson, who was having to perform some cranking to re-start his car on a hill outside of Mead.     Following visits at Mead, Highlandlake (today a small unincorporated community town near Mead) and Johnstown, the convoy returned to Greeley at 6:55 p.m.   Giving the lie to the stereotypes about women drivers, the news account of this trip lauded Nora (Silcott) Watson, the only woman driver of the booster bunch, and her car, a Cadillac model “30,” reporting that “her driving was one of the features of the trip and there wasn’t a time when she couldn’t have passed anything else on the road.”

(If you’d like to see a photo of the Greeley Commercial Club boosters and their cars after arriving in Fort Lupton that day,  please see my blog at  https://jacksoldphotosofcolorado.com/1522-2/ .  In the photo, the boosters are seen congregated, with their automobiles, on Denver Avenue, just north of its intersection with 4th street.  The building seen in the background is the original St. John Mercantile building, which burned to the ground on Saint Patrick’s Day, 1912.   Following the fire, Edgar St. John rebuilt, and the building you see today, now the home of Wholly  Stromboli, is the one he built to replace it.)

The flag- and banner-bedecked car over to the right is probably the pilot car, and, if so, that is probably C. F. Bell at the wheel.   Note the car with a female driver just to the left of the boy in the middle of the picture.  That is almost certainly the aforementioned Nora Watson at the wheel of her Cadillac “30.”

Speeding

With cars increasing in numbers and popularity, it was only a matter of time before speeding drivers would become a problem.  According to one source I came across, Fort Lupton’s first speed limit law was put in place in 1915.   However, there apparently was a speeding problem in Fort Lupton as far back as 1910, at least if one can believe two bizarre articles published in the Greeley Tribune on June 2, 1910.  I can only assume the articles were concocted out of thin air with the goal of making people think twice about their speed when driving or riding through Lupton.  

The first article, appearing under the headline “Joy Riders Go Slow at Fort Lupton,” and paired with an adjoining second article on the same subject, reported that the Fort Lupton marshal, who was unnamed, had improvised a “good,” “very effective” scheme to make speeding operators of cars and motorcycles “respect the majesty of Fort Lupton’s law” and stop them speeding through town at 50 to 60 miles per hour. 

(The reported speeds of 50 to 60 miles per hour is quite an exaggeration.    A January 2022 article at www.hotcars.com  titled “The Ford Model T Top Speed Vs Its Rivals,“ reported the following top speeds:  1908 Ford Model T — 42 mph; 1910 Overland Model 38 – 50 mph; 1909  Cadillac Model 30 touring car – 40 mph; 1911 Buick Model 33 – 35 mph; 1911 Maxwell Model AB Runabout – 35 mph; 1911 Brush Model E Runabout – 35 mph; 1911 EMF Studebaker 30 touring car – 21 mph.  The highest top end speed reported in the article was 65 mph for the 6-cylinder Chevrolet Series C Classic Six, but that car wasn’t produced until 1912, two years after the article was published.)

Reportedly “racking his brains” to solve the problem of speeders, the marshal’s solution, described as showing “ingenuity,” was to stretch a rope from his house across “Main street” (probably a reference to Denver Avenue) “high enough to reach the necks of the enthusiastic motorists.”   Describing the mechanics of this law enforcement technique with remarkable understatement, the Tribune said, “The rope comes in contact with the neck of the driver or rider (and)  the sensation is described as the same as that experienced when being guillotined.”   

The second article spoke of a Sunday afternoon in Lupton when the above-described technique was employed, during which “several drivers had their necks cut in a painful manner by the rope.”  After the motorist who had sustained this painful cut to the neck “ascertains that he is not being murdered, the constable comes from his house and informs him that he cannot proceed until he agrees to respect the life and property of Fort Lupton’s citizens.”    Through use of this technique, it was hoped that the next time speeders come through Fort Lupton “they will go at a pace slow enough to enable them to stop before meeting any more ropes.” 

Sundays must have been a good day for racing, for the second article reported that “an automobile filled with deputies will be stationed Sundays on the road to race after flying cars and cycles” and bring them before the justice of the peace.   It probably goes without saying that the deputies were all qualified on lariat.

Filling Stations and Garages

In 1911, the same year that Philip and Allsebrook started selling cars and motorcycles, James Coffey, a forward-looking livery owner from Platteville, bought a lot just north of Lupton’s Cash Store  on Denver Avenue and began overseeing the building of what would be Fort Lupton’s first filling station.   Sadly, he was only three weeks into this new venture when he dropped dead of heart failure on the construction site.  He was about 58 years old.  Construction of the place would resume later, perhaps under the supervision of Coffey’s son, Richard.   The finished establishment, which sat at 312 Denver Avenue, now the location of the Star Theater, would feature gasoline storage tanks installed beneath the floor.  To gas up a car, the attendant would pump the gasoline from the tank into a hand-held container and pour the gasoline from the container into the car’s gas tank. 

In 1914, a man named Ora N. Putnam would buy the Coffey establishment.  Putnam, a Missourian born in 1880, had been in Colorado since around 1900 and was working at the Baum coal mine at Dacono when he came to Fort Lupton to buy Coffey’s station.  (If you’d like to see a photo of the Baum mine and read about its history, see my blog at https://jacksoldphotosofcolorado.com/796-2/.)   By 1916, Putnam had installed gasoline pumps which allowed the pumping of gasoline directly into the car and were said to be the most modern of their kind in Colorado at the time. 

In 1915, wanting to expand his business to include the servicing and selling of cars, Putnam built the Midway Garage, pictured here, on the site of an old livery located directly across Denver Avenue from his filling station.   The livery, established in 1890, had been operated by Joe Gorman and later by D. Carter Moore.  Putnam would employ six mechanics at the Midway.  In place of the “Fordson Tractors” sign seen in the  photo, the original sign on his building read simply “GARAGE.”   It is here that Putnam would build Lupton’s first automobile showroom and sell Hupmobiles, Maxwells and Studebakers.    

Note Bracy’s barbershop just to the right of the garage door – you can see the name “BRACY” painted on the window.   This business was owned and operated by Albert W. Bracy, an Illinois native who moved to Colorado in 1911 and married Dora Smithson in Pueblo.  They raised three sons.  I  wonder if the man looking out from the barber shop is Albert.  Maybe the boy stepping into the shop with his wagon is his son, Albert, Jr., who would have been 3 to 4 years old at the time.   

In 1917, Wisconsin-born brothers Joseph William (better known as Joe), John Raymund (better known as J.R.) and Charles Oliver (better known as Olie) Brewster founded their namesake Brewster Motor Company in Fort Lupton and specialized in selling and servicing Ford cars, trucks and tractors.   Joe, the oldest, was president of the company until his untimely death in a house fire in 1945, and J.R.’s wife, Eva (Gegg), was vice-president prior to her death in 1952.  I don’t know where the original Brewster business was located, but in 1919 Ora Putnam sold or rented to them the Midway Garage and what you see in the photo is the Midway building after the Brewster’s had moved their business there.  [The Fordson Tractors referenced in the sign sold very well in the U.S. through most of the 1920’s.   (Ford of Britain would later produce Fordson trucks and vans.)]

In 1928, Joe, J.R. and Olie would move their business into a new building at 214 Denver Avenue  housing an auto showroom, a garage and a filling station.  Like Putnam’s Midway Garage, the Brewsters’ new facility was built on the site of an old livery.   Their new facility was designed by Denver architect John J. Huddart, who would also design the old Fort Lupton library the following year.  That building still stands on the northwest corner of 1st Street (Hwy 52) and McKinley Avenue, but  now serves as the Fort Lupton Museum. 

After the Brewsters took over the Midway Garage, Putnam razed the 1874 school building which sat on the northwest corner of 1st Street (Hwy 52) and Denver Avenue and established the Putnam Oil Company, a filling station and service garage.   On that site now are the Circle K Corner Store and filling station. 

The first tenant of the Midway Garage building after the Brewsters moved out was probably the Hammond Chevrolet Company. Likely a Chevrolet dealership and garage, it operated in Lupton from approximately 1928 to 1933 and also had a location in Brighton. 

Subsequent tenants at 323 Denver Avenue included the Whiteside Realty Company, the veterinary practice of Dr. Bill Aichelman and the Public Service Company of Colorado.  The building’s generous floor space allowed the Public Service Company to park its trucks indoors.  Given the number of years that have passed since the early 30’s, I’m sure there have been many other tenants there as well.  Currently, the building is the home of Beacon Integrated Technologies for home security systems.     

Longevity in Business and Life

Albert Bracy, Ora Putnam and J.R. and Olie Brewster would operate their businesses in Lupton for many years.  Bracy would set his razor down in 1953 at age 75, having had the shop for over 40 years.   Putnam was in business or had a hand in his business for a period of approximately 50 years.  Although he eventually turned the Putnam Oil Company over to his son, Neil, he continued to work at the station well into his later years. In 1968, J.R. and Olie Brewster would sell their Ford business to the Purdy brothers, 51 years after first setting up shop in Lupton.  The Brewster building is now home to a NAPA auto parts store. 

These gentlemen would all live out their lives in Fort Lupton.  Bracy passed away at 82 in December of 1959, Putnam at age 91 in December of 1971, Olie Brewster at age 78 in 1978 and J.R. Brewster at age 92 in 1987.   The remains of Bracy and his wife, Dora, and those of Putnam and his wife, Lillian (Adair), are interred at Fort Lupton’s Hillside Cemetery.  Those of Joe Brewster, J.R. Brewster and his wife, Eva, and Olie Brewster and his wife, Eileen (Morrow), are interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge. 

I am indebted to my cousin, Ray Camenga, for his interest in Fort Lupton history and his generosity in sharing with me this and other Brewster family photos.  I also want to thank Richard Struck for making me aware of the Midway Garage, for his meticulous research into various aspects of Fort Lupton history and for sharing with me the contents of his astonishing memory for people and places.   

REFERENCES:

  • American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Obituaries, 1899-2012, at www.ancestry.com  
  • “Fort Lupton History:  Neil and Juanita Putnam,” (excerpt) Fence Post Magazine dated October 18, 1893.
  • Joseph Brewster 1945 obituary clipping (newspaper and publication date unknown), courtesy of Ray Camenga.
  • Research by Richard Struck.
  • U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 for Albert William Bracy at www.ancestry.com

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