Park Machine Shop has been around since at least 1909, originally located across the street at 419 First Street. It’s been at its current location of 426 First Street since approximately 1948.
July 12, 2009
Frank Boyett
Yesterday’s News
Few inventions have changed the world as much as the automobile — and Henderson had the opportunity to lead that charge.
A century ago Henderson was one of the main manufacturing centers of buggies and wagons, turning out between 20,000 and 25,000 vehicles a year, according to an April 12, 1909, article in the Henderson Journal.
We failed to make the industrial transition from horse and buggy to internal combustion engine, but it wasn’t entirely through a lack of trying. At least two attempts were made to manufacture automobiles here in 1909, and one of them actually produced a vehicle.
It was called the Park Runabout and it was built by the Park Machine Co., which still exists at 426 First St.
Thomas Hicks and George Danhauser opened Park Machine in the spring of 1909 and quickly began work on its prototype.
A July 16 article in the Journal that proclaimed, “First auto built in Henderson,” said the prototype had just been successfully tested and initial plans were to build 100 of them, in both three- and four-passenger models. All cars were to be white.
The article boasted that it had up-to-date features such as a shaft drive — instead of a chain — and a “new and very clever steering device.
“There seems no reason why Henderson should not become a manufacturing point for automobiles.”
A.S. Winstead certainly thought so in 1909. A Sept. 17 story in The Gleaner said he, along with several other businessmen, were contemplating an auto plant in the old Winstead distillery at the end of First Street.
References:
The Gleaner • Fri, Mar 19, 1909
Henderson Morning Gleaner • Sun, Mar 23, 1913
Henderson Morning Gleaner • Thu, Sep 25, 1941
Henderson Morning Gleaner • Thu, Aug 16, 1945