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Polk's gazetteer, 1916–17
The first directory census of North Liberty's auto trade counts one man who would fix a car, and nobody credited with selling one. Polk's 1916–17 gazetteer's whole auto-trade listing for the town is "Barnes Roland C, garage" — and no "automobiles" dealer entry at all: garages 1, automobile dealers 0 named. Whether Barnes's garage also sold cars is not stated by the gazetteer and is not assumed here; it stands as a named gap, its settlers the newspaper advertising run and the 1920s gazetteers. The implement trade in the same census — Baughman Bros (Henry and Benjamin), grocers and farm implements, and Jerry Peters, hardware and farm implements — prints in its own article below. The scale contrast stands in the same volume: North Manchester lists two automobile dealers and Noblesville multiple garages, while North Liberty, population 700, had reached the garage and not yet the dealership.