Graue collection reflects the history of Chevrolet in Lincoln

[February 15, 2018]   

LINCOLN

Many people in Logan County are attached to the history and heritage of our little community. We have a lot to be proud of here in the county and in our various cities and towns, including Lincoln.

Our Abraham Lincoln history is big, as is our history with Route 66. These are things that as a county and a community we strive to exploit in order to bring tourism into the community.

But we have other histories, local history that means a lot to us, more to some than others. Tracking and preserving his personal family history has become important to Chris Graue, owner of Graue Chevrolet in Lincoln.

Recently Chris shared pieces of memorabilia he has collected that reflect the history of Chevrolet dealerships in Lincoln starting with Augspurger & Pleines, Inc. who owned the dealership in starting in the 1940’s. Graue has several items that track the succession of ownership from Augspurger & Pleines to Partlow and Rust, to Partlow & Graue, then Graue & Sawicki, and finally Graue Inc.

When showing LDN his collection, Graue noted that there was another Chevrolet dealership before Augspurger, Goodman Chevrolet, that he has nothing from for his collection. Graue noted that would have been the dealership in the 1930’s.

A few of his favored pieces include a special cigarette holder and a lighter that is engraved with the monogram of Gene Rust.

The cigarette holder is from the Augspurger era and has a black and white artistic design on the front side representing the dealership with the owner’s names. Graue demonstrated how the device worked saying that “you push the knob and the lid opens where you can get your Camel, then the other knob pulls out and that is the lighter.”

The piece would have sat on the desk of the salesman or owner, and would have been there for him to have a smoke while selling a car or offering one to his perspective client. That in itself is a piece of history, as well as a look back over the decades when we see that not only was smoking socially acceptable, it was becoming and a natural part of the workplace setting.

Graue also has a big beefy looking lighter that is monogrammed for Rust.

Graue has a collection of matchbooks reflecting the different names of the dealership, from Auspurger & Pleines with the old address of the dealership and a two-digit phone number, all the way up to the current Graue Chevrolet.

He has one metal ashtray from the 1940’s again with the old address and phone number, and also the Buick logo.

His collection includes many yardsticks, from a variety of the dealerships, and one that he finds particularly interest.

He pointed out that the yardstick had hole in it, 16 holes to be exact, and that they were there for a very specific purpose. Cars have cylinders and cylinders have valves. There are two valves for each cylinder, so an eight cylinder engine would have 16 valves.

Graue said that with the yardstick nearby, mechanics would pull the valves out of the engine, and place them in the holes in the yardstick, in a specific order. When all the valves were pulled, the mechanic would take the valves to a machine for grinding. Each one would be pulled out and returned to the same hole. Then when it was time to return the valves to the engine, they were in the correct order and would be returned to the same chamber they were taken from at the start.

That particular yardstick is from the Partlow & Graue dealership which means it is from the 1963 to 1973 time period.

Other items Graue has include an OK Used Car tag, which would have been taped to a window on a good used car verifying that the car had been thoroughly inspected and was designated as a good quality used vehicle that would come with warranty from the dealership. Graue said that was a big deal back in the day and compares it to the “Certified” status the dealership uses today.

Graue said that over the years friends have found things they thought Chris would be interested in and they have brought those things for him to see, and sometimes they have given them to Chris to keep in his collection.

Among those, he noted his friend Jim Wilson had found a tri-fold among some of the things stored in a basement. The tri-fold would have belonged to Jim’s father originally. The tri-fold from the 1950’s came in the glovebox of a new car. Graue noted that the tri-fold entitled, “Important facts you should know about warranty and service,” though more than 50 years old, still contains the basic information that a new car buyer will hear or receive today from Graue Chevrolet.

Other items in his collection include an invitation to the debut of the 1953 Buick. Graue said the item was found and given to him by John Hasselbrock. Graue also has a 1958 Chevrolet cars & trucks cup that he found and purchased in an antique store.

For Graue the items he has on hand reflect the history that became his heritage, and like a family tree, Graue can account for the history of the dealership, reciting from memory.

The chronology of the dealership

While little is known about the Goodman dealership, that was the starting point sometime in the 1930’s.

In the 1940’s Augspurger & Pleines purchased and managed the business as a “Buick – Chevrolet” dealership with Buick being the controlling franchise.

In 1955-56 the dealership was purchased by Gene Partlow and Jack Rust and became Partlow and Rust.

In 1963, Bob Graue bought into the business, and the name changed once again. With Rust selling out, the dealership was named Partlow and Graue.

Then in 1973 Partlow sold out to Sawicki and the dealership was renamed to Graue Sawicki.

In 1980, Bob Graue bought out the dealership and the name was changed for the final time to Graue Inc., as it remains today.

History of the dealership locations in Lincoln

The dealership began downtown at 227-29 North Kickapoo. To put a bead on that location today, the dealership was located across the street from Latham Park where the mail kiosk is now. The showroom and business portion of the building is now gone, but the back portion that was the shop is currently still standing and belongs to the city of Lincoln. The building is after all these years, in disrepair, and is on the city’s “to do” list to be demolished.

That first location suffered a fire in 1968. The front portion of the building was destroyed so today only the back portion survives.

The dealership then moved to its current location, 1905 North Kickapoo. A new building was built there with its official opening being celebrated in August or September of 1969.

Since moving to the far north end of the city, the dealership has had two facelifts. The first being at the turn of the century. Graue explained the dealership was given a new look in accordance with the Chevrolet “Image 2000” program.

That modern look was updated again as part of its branding initiative designed by Chevrolet in 2013. That year was also the celebration of the 60th year of the dealership in Lincoln, celebrated by the Graue family with open house celebrations including a ribbon cut for the newly completed re-model.

The history of the Graue dealership

Bob Graue was drafted in the Korean War. He had been a college student in Iowa, but when he returned home from his tour of duty, returning to college was not in the cards. Bob started looking for work and after a time of doing odd jobs around the Lincoln community, was hired for a position with the state of Illinois in the Secretary of State’s office in Springfield.

A new job meant Bob needed a vehicle so as to drive back and forth to Springfield. He went to Augspurger & Pleines for that reason. The sales manager, said to Bob, “Why on earth would you want to drive to Springfield when you can work for us and sell cars on a straight commission?” Chris Graue recalled the story, “He (Bob) accepted the job and went home and told my grandmother Gertie that he had accepted the straight commission job selling cars and Gertie thought he had absolutely lost his mind.”

That was 1953. Chris said that he has paperwork from when his dad sold cars in those early days, and he marveled at the ups and downs in the market. “The ups and downs and peaks and valleys of selling cars back then was amazing. It was rags to riches, and rags, to riches, just up and down and up and down.”

Chris also noted that selling cars was never really about the cars for his dad, “With my dad it wasn’t necessarily about being crazy about cars, it was working with people that he liked, and that is really what the car business is all about. It really isn’t about selling cars, it’s about working with people.”

Chris himself started working at the dealership when he was a kid. When he was in either the fourth or fifth grade he says he started hanging around, coming in on Saturday’s sweeping floors, and cleaning the bathrooms. He advanced to helping with detailing cars, then moved on to actually working on cars in the service department. He enjoyed working in the shop and, mechanically inclined, he was pretty good at it.

He went off to school and when he got out, he did not return to the Lincoln dealership. Instead he took a job for the Chevrolet dealership in Jacksonville, then later he worked for Toyota in Springfield.

At that time Bob Graue was managing the Chevrolet franchise in Lincoln, and the Buick franchise belonged to Ed Hasselhurt. The Hasselsurt dealership was located immediately to the north of Graue.

The day came when Bob Graue had the opportunity to purchase the Hasselhurst franchise. Near the same point in time, Bob purchased a dealership in Mason City. With the immediate expansion, the door was then opened for Chris Graue to return home and work for his father, as the Service Manager at Graue Inc.

The dealership eventually underwent other changes with Chris and his brother, Mark, taking over the management of the dealership. Chris said he and his brother ran the business together for a while, but Mark’s heart wasn’t in it, he chose to leave and pursue other interests.

Graue loves the dealership, as did his father, and though he is a very busy guy, he says he is not alone in the dealership and really never has been. He noted that he has a team of professionals working within the dealership that make the daily management go as smoothly as anyone could possibly hope for.

Within the dealership there are members of the family involved, and there are people who are there who feel like family and respect the dealership like family.

Finally, going back to talking about the collectibles he has, Graue led the way to the Customer Service area where a clock hangs on the wall. He noted that when his dad Bob went to work at Augspurger & Pleines, that same clock was hanging on the wall in the showroom. Bob saved the clock, and it has always had a prominent spot within the dealership.

Chris Graue said that in the history of automobiles, there have also been plenty of marketing tools and gadgets handed out to customers and prospects. There are also items like that clock that were provided by the Chevrolet Corporation for use inside the dealership.

Graue knows some of those items have survived the years, as proven with his own collection. But he wonders if others around the community might have items that they are unaware would have any meaning to anyone. He said that he’s interested in seeing what the community might have, and said he would like to expand his collection to include a wider variety of items. He’s hopeful that someone may have some piece of memorabilia that he does not have, and that they will bring it in for him to see.

So, when you’re cleaning out the garage and run across something you forgot you had, before you throw it in the trash, drop into Graue Chevrolet and give Chris the opportunity to see it.

Remember, one man’s trash could be another man’s treasure, and for Chris Graue, he treasures the items that pay homage to Chevrolet, the history of Chevy dealers in Lincoln, and of course his dad Bob.

[Nila Smith]