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Sunday’s Garage, Eads, CO, ca. 1924.

Eads, the seat of Kiowa County, is in the southeastern corner Colorado, and due east of Eads is the state of Kansas.

Sunday’s Garage was a Ford and Lincoln dealership in Eads owned by Howard Rahn Sunday, a Pennsylvanian by birth.  He was viewed by some as a “pioneer in the garage and tractor business.” He sold new and used vehicles, including tractors and plows, as well as vehicle parts, gasoline and tires.   Note the sign for “Fordson Tractors” on the peak of the roof.  These were built by the Ford Motor Company and have been likened to the Model T car, given the large number produced, their reliability and affordability and their availability through a widespread dealership network.   

The building pictured here was built by Sunday, and he operated his business here from 1917 until 1929.  It featured three pits for repairing cars and running water from the well that Sunday sank there.  

Sunday ran frequent ads in the Kiowa County Press newspaper, many titled “Doings at Sunday’s Garage.”   Here are a couple of examples of “doings:”  “A.C. Tarman of Rocky Ford purchased a new Ford couple on Tuesday;” and “H.H. Becker had the fenders and chassis of his car painted with pyroxlin air brush on Wednesday.” 

Howard had a sense of humor.  In one of his “doings” ads, he states that his ads are published “spasmodically.”   Apparently no fan of the Eads Commerce Club, one of his “doings” items reads:  “We have been hauling off rubbish but never ran across the Commerce Club.”   

One of Sunday’s business promotions was an offer of $5.00 in cash to the owner of a car weighing at least 1,600 pounds who got the best gas mileage using their “Blue Ribbon” gasoline.  (“Blue Ribbon” was produced in Kansas and sold by the Golden Rule Oil Company, and it was shipped to Eads in barrels, probably by train car.)  As part of another apparent promotion, in 1920 it was reported that Sunday was taking cows in payment for Fords and pasturing them in town!

To give you an idea of the times in which Sunday lived, on October 5, 1920, electric lights, powered by an oil-burning generator, were turned on for the first time in Eads.  The Kiowa County Press of November 26, 1920, reported that, “for the benefit of the Eads housewives who wish to do ironing, the current will be on from eight until twelve Wednesday of each week.”  By August of 1921, Eads enjoyed electrical power 18 hours a day.

There are few clues regarding Howard Sunday’s life after 1929.  The 1930 Census reported his occupation as mechanic in an “auto garage;” in 1940, he was a laborer on a farm.  His 1942 World War II draft registration card shows he and his wife, Josephine, living in Eads and Howard working in Lamar for the Felter Motor Company.  That Howard maintained a vigorous mind into his later years is indicated by the fact that he received a patent in 1965, when he would have been 85 years old, for the “Rack Drive Fluid Engine.”   Described as a possible solution to the auto pollution problem, the engine would enable both strokes of the pistons to be power strokes. 

Howard died in 1967 at the age of 87, and Josephine died in 1971 at age 81 or 82.  They are both buried in the Eads cemetery.   The Sunday’s Garage building still stands at 1111 Maine Street (see Google Maps photo dated July 2012 at https://maps.google.com/ ). 

Note the information at the bottom of the photo identifying the location of Sunday’s Garage as “On the Kansas Colorado Boulevard and D.C.D. Highway.”  (The front of the garage is facing the D.C.D, Highway, and presumably the road going out to the right of the photo is the Kansas Colorado Boulevard.)    I had never heard of either one of these, so I did some research and learned that both were probably what are now termed “auto trails.”  “Auto trails” were roads or highways formed via cooperative efforts prior to the establishment of a numbered U.S. highway system in 1926.  These efforts could involve a variety of participants, e.g., private citizens, county commissioners, states, commercial boosters, and associations formed solely for promoting the development of a particular road or highway.  

The Kansas Colorado Boulevard ran from Great Bend, Kansas, to Pueblo, Colorado. A good example of local involvement with one particular segment of this road is found in an article in the Kiowa County Press newspaper dated June 11, 1926.  It stated:  “The Kansas Colorado Boulevard will be graveled between Eads and Galeton (which was west of Eads), a distance of fourteen miles.”  The project was authorized and paid for by the state, but the work would be in the hands of locals.  The article states:  “The gravel will be obtained north of Eads and will be hauled by wagons, one team being allowed each family and only home people will be allowed to work on the project.”   

The acronym for the D.C.D. Highway stood for “Dallas-Canadian-Denver.”  The word “Canadian” didn’t apply to our neighbor to the north, but, rather, to the north Texas town of Canadian, which sat on, and was named for, the Canadian River, a tributary of the Arkansas River.   In 1916, the completion of a bridge over the river at Canadian gave rise to the idea of extending the highway which ran from Galveston up to Dallas, then northwest through Canadian, through the Oklahoma panhandle, up into southeastern Colorado and on to Denver (some accounts say Boulder.)     The result was the D.C.D. Highway.  It was greeted with excitement regarding its potential for increasing commerce and connections along its route.    It would be interesting to know if there are still remnants of these “auto trails.”

REFERENCES:

  • Colorado County Marriage Records and State Index, 1862-2006 (Ancestry.com)
  • Jacobs/Sholly Family Tree (Ancestry.com)

April 6, 1917; November 26, 1920′ September 30, 1921; February 27, 1925; April 3, 1925; June 11, 1926; and May 13, 26 and 27, 1927

  • U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards for 1942 (Ancestry.com)
  • Wikipedia at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_trail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian,_Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eads, Colorado

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Numbered_Highway_System

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