This week on the blog, we’re going to browse through some more of the wonderful old photos in Jack & Marge Day’s collection.
First is what may be the most recent of the photos we’ll look at this week.
The newspaper caption taped to the back of this photo, dated October 9, 1954, says: “The motor car hasn’t put the buggy entirely out of business. With a working force of fifteen, [the Standard Vehicle Company] turns out about one buggy a day, using skills almost lost since the automobiles closed [most] of the eight hundred factories* that made fancy rigs in the horse-drawn era. Owner Ed Knapp says the buggy business is getting better all the time. Most of his business is in pony carts and buggies for ‘gentlemen farmers.’ He made several rigs for Hollywood a few years ago. Here, Ed Knapp stands among finished vehicles in the company’s display room at Lawrenceburg.”
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(from the Jack and Marge Day collection)
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* Could the “eight hundred factories” have been in Indiana alone? At the height of the carriage-building era, more than 40,000 businesses across the U.S. were involved in some aspect of making carriages, wagons, and sleighs.
The Slower Road 
April 19, 2016 at 11:55 pm
Found an old “price list” circular complete with pictures for No. 612 phaeton cart, No.J-10, No. J-1200, No. J-1905, etc. from Standard Vehicle Company at 323 West High Street; Lawrenceburg Indiana . . . telephone 68. “Our Best Buggy” is No. J-1200, wholesale price of $148.00 . . . cash! Would love to know if this company is still in business. Circular was found in a Sligo Iron Store Company 1902 catalogue. All was in my family’s store in Lockhart Texas, Joe Masur Hardware/Wagon Sales that was in operation in the early 1900’s.