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UER Forum > Archived US: South > Cales Motor Company, circa 1929 in Ralston, OK (Viewed 402 times) dwtaylor999  Location: Unassigned Lands, Oklahoma Gender: Male  |  Cales Motor Company, circa 1929 in Ralston, OK < on 3/7/2011 2:59 AM >   J.O. Cales was a prominent businessman in Ralston, OK in the 19 teens and twenties. In addition to being the First National Bank president, he owned several businesses, including the town Ice Plant, a service station, and a Ford Garage. He later became locally famous, or infamous, when according to local legend, he absconded with the banks funds just before it failed in 1931 during the Great Depression. Supposedly he took the funds to Chicago where his sons where, and from there the story gets fuzzy. He was either arrested and died shortly there after, died on the train back, or committed suicide on the way back. In any case, he passed on and the money was never recovered. In the early days of Ford in Oklahoma, there really weren't any dealerships, the cars where sold through authorized garages, and in the case of this garage, the cars where shipped in pieces from Detroit via train and had to be assembled by the garage for sale. A 1915 map of the town. The garage and service station are circled in red. I don't thing J.O. built the garage, but bought it from the previous owners, based of this clip from 1919 in the Pawnee Chief newspaper. Apr 10,1919 Pawnee Chief MENTZER Brothers are rearranging the interior of the Ford Garage this week by tearing out a partition and taking in additional space for their office room. Not being satisfied with the best garage in the northern part of Oklahoma, they are enlarging their office, in keeping with the growth of business, and in anticipation of the future needs of their business. I found this in an old obit On Feb. 6, 1925, he married Rose Lorene Bryson in Perry and the couple established their first home in Ralston. Kail was employed in Ralston at the Ford Garage, assembling Model-T cars. It turned out there where actually two dealerships in town, one Ford, the other Chevrolet, though it came later. It was located across the street. The Cales Motor Company consisted of two large buildings on the street, with an underground garage under one of the buildings that was rented out for automobile storage, kind of an early underground parking garage. Here's an old invoice from the garage dated February 1929, a few months before the October 1929 crash. This is an old photo of the Cales service station. J.O. Cales is the gentleman on the far right in the tie. The service station was across main street and down about 1/3 of a block. The road in front of the service station would drive you right into the garage once you crossed main street. As the service station looks today. Its currently sitting empty, but is still in remarkably good condition. The roof tiles are not tiles at all, but stamped tin that were painted. More on this later. I have as yet been unable to find any historical photos of the garage itself, but eventually will. This is how it looks today. From the north side. Note the bricked up windows and entrances. To the right of the building was Main street. Some faint lettering is visible under the old paint, but I couldn't make out what it said. Say what you will, the old lead paint really lasted. View from Main Street. The barred entrance allowed access to both the street and lower levels. The rear of the 1st building. Note the walled off section that originally allowed access to the upper section of the 2nd building. The 1st building was later used for may things, lastly being a feed store for many years, but is now also abandoned. It's essentially a large open area that was used as a warehouse in its later years. It was once used as the showroom. The roof on the second building was long gone, and the back wall had partially collapsed. This section was originally a main street, but has long since become an alley. The rear entrance of the lower level to the alley/street. It appears the back wall was two layers. Some type of concrete block/paver was used. View of the front entrance to the second building. The Ice Plant was to the right. Note the ramp down to the lower level. A modern car couldn't make this ramp, though a truck probably could. Those old model T's could really go through some rough terrain. Remnants of old signage. View of the entrance from the inside. Some of the trees where substantial, indicating how long the roof had been gone. There wasn't much of interest up top. You can see where the underground section supporting wall shows through the jungle. This walled up section allowed access between the two building in the middle. Down we go. Not sure what model the door was off of. Fender skirts and oil pan. I think this came out of the ice plant. Remember those tin tiles? I suspect this pile came from the roof of this building. Is Dr Who here? What the heck is this thing? The building is on the verge of collapse and I probably shouldn't have gone in. Out the rear entrance. I figured I'd better caputure what I could. Collapse is imminent. According to several of the locals, J.O. sold more Fords than any other dealer in the state. I have no way to confirm that, but considering the proximity to the Osage reservation and the oil wealth at the time, there is a strong probability it was true. Ruins, the fate of all cities. Price  Location: Houston,TX Gender: Male Urbex: Keeping record of things most people have forgotten.  |  Re: Cales Motor Company, circa 1929 in Ralston, OK <Reply # 1 on 3/7/2011 3:47 AM >   im taking a trip to OK with my fam for some UE soon hope this is all still gonna be there “It still amazes me how many millions goes to discovering another star in the galaxies when, for all we know, we are still sitting on top of another undiscovered world beneath our feet.” -Martin Dansky (1952) UER Forum > Archived US: South > Cales Motor Company, circa 1929 in Ralston, OK (Viewed 402 times) All content and images copyright © 2002-2024 UER.CA and respective creators. Graphical Design by Crossfire. To contact webmaster, or click to email with problems or other questions about this site: UER CONTACT View Terms of Service | View Privacy Policy | Server colocation provided by Beanfield This page was generated for you in 79 milliseconds. 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