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Truman Baker Chevrolet. A big name in Searcy Arkansas for years.

Truman Baker

Here's another one of friend Paula's pictures. She won a camera and went around town snapping pictures for a Girl Scout project. It was sometime in the 40's.

This was the Truman Baker corner at the corner of Race and Main. The Truman Baker Chevrolet dealership took up this corner for many years. It has been less than 5 years, probably, since they closed it down and moved it to a larger spot near the freeway. The corner now has a Walgreen's drugstore. All buildings have been torn down.

Posted by Barbara S. Duncan ABR, CRS, GRI, e-PRO Searcy AR on 09/24/2008 09:21 AM

Comments (10)

Truman Baker Chevrolet in the Regional (Localism) Channel

truman baker chevrolet, searcy ar, white county ar, barbara s duncan realtor, old pictures

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10 Comments on Truman Baker Chevrolet. A big name in Searcy Arkansas for years.

SEP

Barbara,

This looks like many showrooms of that era. Some survived relatively well.

Steve

Steve, they had a certain look about them, didn't they?

Barbara,

For a minute there I thought that you had gone political and thought that Harry Truman was on the ticket.

Now I"M confused: do you see two gas brands in that picture? a Lion gas in the left corner, but Sinclair around the drive in thingee. MY memory is of about 1953 - I dated a boy who worked there at Truman Baker, at that time it was Gulf gas. My dad sold Esso.....he would tell me all the gas trucks of the different brands would pull up to one universal pump and therefore all gas was the same. That would make me furious, for I was brought up to believe there was NO GAS better than ESSO.

Anita Fuller

Steve, Truman Baker was our Harry Truman. He was a big name politician and helped build roads, etc., in Arkansas. He still has family in the business.

Anita, I really think that the other sign might be on the opposite corner. There was a gas station there too, wasn't there? What a lie to tell the public about gas. If it was all the same!!! And they probably ran all the ads telling folks to buy one or the other. I wish your dad were alive because he'd probably tell us that is STILL all the same!!

Anita, to add more confusion, the sign above the pumps says Sinclair's Chevrolet Sales Trucks.

I would have thought the Sinclair sign referred to the oil products and the Gulf sign was for the gasoline.

Sinclair Gasoline had a Dinosauer logo The Sinclair sign is much too big and prominent to refer to oil or

gas. Harold probably has an answer for this.

The sign near the service man is Opaline (Sinclair Opaline Motor Oil) and the vertical sign is Pensylvania which also refers to an oil.

Don & Paula Anne

Back in La Petite Roche

I'm not sure I have much to contribute, Don, you are reading things I cannot see in the picture. But my vague memory of the Race-Main interection was (around 1950)

NE corner: Truman Baker Chevrolet dealer

NW corner: Plymouth-Dodge-Chrysler dealer (My family bought a 1948 Dodge there)

SE corner: Lion service station

SW corner: City Service service station

Also, there was a Texico station on Main between Arch and Center, across the street from the Methodist Church. We would park there on Sunday night as they were closed. I remember that church started at 7:30pm and everyone would sit in thier cars to hear the end of Amos and Andy, then stream into church exactly at 7:30.

Yes, Barbara, Truman Baker was very active in politics. He was on the Highway Commission for several years and really did White County lots of good. In the mid-1940s, the ONLY paved road in White County, outside Searcy, was Highway 67, and it was only a narrow blacktop road where two cars could hardly pass and was really exciting for passing trucks. By the time he got off the Highway Commission, there were lots of good paved roads. That was the way things got done in Arkansas in those days, and probably still.

SEP

Don and Harold gene, your input is wonderful, as usual. That corner was all gas and autos, wasn't it! Now we have to drive quite a few blocks to find a service station. Who'd they sell all that gas to back then with fewer cars? LOL

Not only did they sell "all that gas" but pumped your gas, cleaned your windshield, checked your oil and your tires. Remember that?

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