Out of and Into the Livery Barn

(Click on image to enlarge)
Edward Rohwedder's livery business, early 1900s. Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Edward Rohwedder had bought his father's livery business in 1911, and rented the barn behind the Hobart House as his livery stable. (The barn and a house associated with it remained the property of his mother, Margaret.) Now, after seven years, he was getting out of the livery business and selling off his equipment. The advertisement for his public sale gives us a look at what made up a livery stable.


(Click on image to enlarge)

Before the sale even took place, the barn had been rented by our old friends, James Chester and Ross Graham. They intended to use it for their horse-selling operations, and run a livery of their own. Ross Graham rented the house and moved his family into it. As for Ed, he moved to a farm in Porter County.

If Ross & Chester did follow through with the livery plan, they were probably renting autos rather than horses, as the next month the News commented on the passing of an era:

Just as the recent sale of the Rohwedder livery marked the passing of the old-time horse and buggy livery business in Hobart, the Muzzall horse livery passed out of existence in Crown Point, on the first of the month, being the last of its kind in the county seat town. The auto has taken the place of the horse in this businesses, and we are glad of it, when we look back and think of the poor animals as they would come dragging themselves in early Monday morning after heartless drives by young scapegoats whose only thought was "a good time," but the Lord only knows how they could figure they had had a good time while driving a poor horse within an inch of his life.

Sources:
♦ "Edward Rohwedder Has Rented the Hobart House Barn." Hobart News 17 Oct. 1912.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 14 Feb. 1918; 7 Mar. 1918.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 8 Sept. 1911; 22 Feb. 1918; 18 Mar. 1918.
♦ "Public Sale." Hobart News 7 Feb. 1918.