The Horse Town's Trades: Harness, Wagons and Liveries

1867–2026 · THE OLDER RECORD AT FULL SIZE

The ground the dealers inherited was a horse town's: harness shops, wagonmakers, implement houses and three liveries at once. The harness trade stands first: A. B. Rupel opened his harness shop in 1878 (Chapman); Jacob Ruple is listed for harness in 1882, with A. B. Ruple harnessmaker in 1884; Arthur S. Leroy stands as "harness manufacturer" in 1882; and V. L. Ake carries the trade into the motor age, listed for harness in 1916. The wagon and carriage shops are Adam Baugher, carriagemaker (1882, 1884), and William L. Caudle (1882; "Candle" in 1884), wagonmaker; John Cotton had followed the wagon and carriage-maker's trade before turning farmer in 1868 (Chapman). The blacksmiths of the town ground are Michael R. Burger (1882, 1884) and the firm of Covert & Curtis (1882; Curtis & Covert in 1884). The liveries — the sale barns of the horse economy — run three deep in the canvasses: Andrew Cunningham's combined house advertised in 1882 "Hardware, Agricultural Implements, Steam Engines, Threshers, Buggies, Carriages, Wagons, Etc." together with a "Livery, Sale and Feed Stable"; Reuben Varner's Livery, Sale and Feed Stable advertised in both 1882 and 1884; and G. W. Jones's Livery, Sale and Feed Stables in both years, while Hamilton & Thompson kept the Walkerton Livery Stable in Chapman's telling from the 1870s, and Wm. W. Hamilton's own course — grocery in 1867, then "buggy and carriage painting" about five years — is the trade learning its vehicles one coat at a time. The implement houses that sold the farm its machinery are the dealers' other parent: J. Willis Cotton, "Agricultural Implements, Sewing Machines and Pump Dealer" (1882, 1884); Horace P. Courtright, hardware (1882); S. F. Ross & Co., hardware (1884) — Samuel F. Ross, shoemaker turned merchant, whose son George P. Ross bought the business in 1897 and by 1907 did $18,000 a year embracing "the sale of buggies, carriages and machinery" (Howard); and in 1916 the South Bend implement house of D. W. Place kept its Walkerton branch, C. L. Granger manager, beside Houser Bros' hardware and implements.

The horse trade's fullest local course is Myron D. Leroy's. After nine years farming, Leroy "in 1891 turned his attention to the livery and sale stable business in Walkerton"; in 1897 a fire destroyed his barn, burning twelve head of horses and all his vehicles; the following spring he rebuilt "a larger and better equipped barn, strictly modern," and at Howard's writing in 1907 he kept eighteen head of horses, did "the hearse work of the town," and could point to 1906, when "in company with another gentleman, he sold one hundred and fifty head in Walkerton." A hundred and fifty horses sold in a town of twelve hundred people in a single year is the horse economy at its peak, dated — and it is dated four years before the first automobile listing in the town's record, which is the succession in one line. The war years of the horse trade and the trade's institutions — no dealer association, show or makers' organization is named for Walkerton in any source read — print as the record gives them: nothing.

The first canvass of the motor trade is Polk's 1916–17 entry, and it counts three names. "Apple W B, autos and garage" — the town's first automobile seller of record, selling and garaging under one line; "Howe Wm A, garage" — the second garage; and "Miller C L, taxicabs" — the taxi trade arriving the same year. The franchise record therefore begins in the dark between 1916 and the postwar years, and the war-years course of the trade here — the service-only years when there was nothing new to sell — is undocumented for Walkerton in the record read; both stand as named gaps, with the Independent's advertising columns as the settler of first resort. The first postwar point the record names is a franchise: Williams Supply Co., 408 Michigan St — Studebaker sales — established 1951, carried in the Studebaker dealer registry (the Studebaker Drivers Club's compiled listing of the marque's dealers, from factory and period sources) with a sighting circa 1960. A Walkerton Ford point circa 1950 is claimed by a "1950 Ford Dealership Award" plaque consigned to a Walkerton farm and equipment auction in the present record — a lead, not a dealer: no Ford house is named for the town in any directory, registry or paper read here, and the claim prints as unverified in the gaps below rather than as a dealership. Williams Supply's own end — Studebaker's South Bend automobile production closed in December 1963 — is not dated for this house in the record read.

The trade's migration is the town's own geography: from the livery streets of the plat to the Roosevelt Road corridor. The horse trade stood downtown, where the liveries and harness shops stood; the garages of 1916 stand in the directory without addresses; the Studebaker point stood at 408 Michigan St, on the town's main street, in 1951. The present trade stands on Roosevelt Road (U.S. 6) at the town's edge, and it is a used-car, parts and service trade: Celebrity Motors Inc., 909 Roosevelt Rd, used cars, "serving the Walkerton area since 1987" by its own account; Midwest Motors, 1220 Roosevelt Rd, used cars; Auto Value Walkerton, 626 Roosevelt Rd, parts; Hamilton Service Center, 100 Roosevelt Rd, repair, in business thirty years by its own account. No franchised new-car dealer lists a Walkerton address in the current directories consulted for this section; the new-car points of the modern course sit at Plymouth and South Bend, as the banks did in 1882. That is this section's closing line, and it is the record's, not a judgment: the town that sold 150 horses in 1906 and kept a Studebaker point on Michigan Street in 1951 sells used cars on the highway now.

Sources:

1. Chapman (1880), Lincoln Township sketches (Rupel's 1878 shop; Hamilton's course and Hamilton & Thompson; Cotton's wagon trade).
2. Polk 1882–83, vol. II, pp. 798–799, and 1884–85, vol. III, pp. 743–745 (harness, wagon, smith, livery, implement listings and the Cunningham and Varner advertisements), read whole.
3. Howard (1907), vol. 2: Myron D. Leroy sketch, pp. 942–943 (the 1891 start, the 1897 fire, the 1906 hundred and fifty head); George P. Ross sketch, pp. 945–946 (the 1897 purchase; buggies, carriages and machinery).
4. Polk 1916–17, pt. 2, Walkerton entry (Apple; Howe; Miller; Ake; Houser Bros; Place branch), read whole.
5. Studebaker Dealer Listing — Indiana page, studebaker-info.org (Studebaker Drivers Club registry): "Williams Supply Co., 408 Michigan St., Walkerton, IN (C 1960)… 1951 Est." Read whole for the state.
6. Present-day listings as cited in the closing passage (Celebrity Motors, Midwest Motors, Auto Value, Hamilton Service Center, each at its Roosevelt Road address, consulted November 2026); the Ford award plaque as catalogued in the GoToAuction Walkerton consignment listing — lead only.