J. Doty's Ford Garage (?)
Newhall, California
By the second decade of the 20th Century, real estate prices along busy Railroad Avenue had pushed many Newhall
merchants off of the main street. Jesse W. Doty opened "Doty's Garage" on Spruce Street (modern-day
San Fernando Road) in 1914 and turned it into the local Ford dealership. Known as Clymore
Ford in the 1950s, the dealership changed hands several times before it finally became Magic Ford. Magic moved the
dealership to Creekside Road in Valencia.
JERRY REYNOLDS WRITES:
Jessy Doty opened the Ford Garage facing San Fernando Road in Newhall in 1914.
Doty, way ahead of his time, employed two attractive young ladies by the names of Margie Smith and Nell Bailey to act as
"service station attendants." From a 100-gallon barrel in the back room, the women would draw gasoline in buckets
to be funneled into waiting car tanks for 10 cents a gallon! (The price was outrageous, but what could one do? This
was an isolated location.) Two years later Carl Sischo acquired the corner of 8th and San Fernando and
opened the first real gas station in the valley.
AP0122: jpeg from copy print
|
