Hobart Then and Now: Nickel Plate Garage/Town Hall

1923, and 2023[1]




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I don't know when the Nickel Plate Garage was built: I didn't note its construction during my microfilm reading and can't find that information in any online source. At present I can only guess that it must have been built after 1910, when it fails to appear in the Sanborn map, and before April of 1917, when I find my earliest note of its existence.[2]

Here is the garage as shown on the 1922 Sanborn map:


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In November 1917, Frank Beltzhoover (by then the sole proprietor) sold the Nickel Plate Garage to William Boyd Owen,[3] a son of the W.B. Owen of brickyard fame. The younger William was born in 1881 or '82 and married Eva Kitchen in Chicago in 1901. In the 1910 Census, William Jr., a Hobart resident, gave his occupation as "Superintendent" of a "Fire Proofing" business — that would be the brickyard, I believe. In the 1920 Census, as might be expected, his occupation was "Auto Salesman."

In January 1920 Paul Wehner bought 50 percent ownership of the Nickel Plate Garage and became its supervisor.[4] Born in 1898, he was the son of Andrew and Anna (Gottlieb) Wehner of Calumet Township. (I would expect to find him in Hobart in the 1920 Census, but I can't find him there or anywhere else.) In 1926, he married Leona Traeger. Sadly, she died the following year from complications of pregnancy; the infant died as well. Paul never remarried. By 1930 he had moved to Michigan City, working as a foreman in an "auto shop," but he came back to Hobart before the decade was out and by 1937 was in some sort of business partnership with Thomas Crisman.[5] He died of pneumonia in January 1937.

W.B. Owen had died in 1928 in South Bend.

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I haven't been able to find out much about what's on the other side of the card.


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The addressee was Eva (Drake) Stevens (or Stephens), a lifelong resident of Michigan as far as I can determine. The sender, Edith S., might have been any of several Ediths in Hobart whose surname begins with S and who were old enough, per the 1920 Census, to be sending postcards. Or she might not have been a Hobart resident at all. With so little information, I can't form even one of my wacky theories about how the sender and receiver might be connected.

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[1] I know the Google street view is from 2022. The view hasn't changed in a year.
[2] "Frailey & Beltzhoover Sell 22 Cars Since January 1st," Hobart News, 5 Apr. 1917. The owners were Clarence Frailey and Frank (or maybe Calvin) Beltzhoover.
[3] "W.B. Owen Buys Nickel Plate Garage of Frank Beltzhoover," Hobart Gazette, 15 Nov. 1917.
[4] "Owen and Wehner New Owners Nickel Plate Garage," Hobart Gazette, 8 Jan. 1920.
[5] "Lake Co. Courts," Hammond Times, 4 Feb. 1937.