Scudder Motor Truck Company Building

The Scudder Motor Truck Company Building, built in 1908 as a factory for the Haase-Bohle Carriage Company, gained its historical significance as the home of the Scudder Motor Truck Company from 1918 through 1937, a dealer of service-delivery trucks and ancillary businesses. Scudder Motor Truck Company Building survives as one of the few carriage-related buildings in St. Louis that transitioned to serving the automobile industry. Scudder used the building as a truck dealership, service shop, tire shop, automobile painting shop, and delivery truck garage. In later years, from 1937 through 1952, the Falstaff Brewing Company used the building as a garage and maintenance shop for its delivery fleet. A new renovation project, while maintaining some of its historical value, threatens to remove much of its original appearance, but the building survives nonetheless.

In 1908, Charles Haase and Frank G. Bohle, president and Vice President of the Haase-Bohle Carriage Company, built a new one-story brick carriage factory at the now-historic location. The company previously operated out of a building they purchased from McCall & Haase Carriage Company, which had been manufacturing carriages since the 1870s. However, the carriage business would soon suffer because the upper and middle classes of St. Louis increasingly chose to purchase automobiles instead of horse-drawn carriages. In 1911, Haase-Bohle expanded the building and attempted to generate profits by offering detailing and refurbishing services for both existing carriages and automobiles, but the new services proved insufficient; the company closed its doors in 1918.

Bohle renovated and remodeled the building in 1918 to accommodate automobiles. However, while the building design met the basic needs of the auto industry, notably personal automobiles, the building's location did not as it sat removed from the city’s Automobile Row, a string of dealerships located on Locust Street between Eighteenth Street and Grand Avenue. Furthermore, meeting the basic needs of an automobile dealership proved insufficient, too. The sophistication of newer car models' designs after World War I led to dealerships with large showrooms and large glass windows so people could marvel at the new cars from the streets; the Haase-Bohle Building did not include those features. So, although Haase-Bohle Building could accommodate motor vehicles, its limitations of location and layout proved infrequent for personal automobile sales. Nevertheless, the building's utilitarian qualities and the facility's proximity to the St. Louis' industrial corridor proved suitable for catering to motor trucks and delivery vehicles used to transfer goods from railroads to factories, among other things. 

In 1918, the Scudder Motor Truck Company, a dealer of Service brand delivery and fleet trucks, moved into the building. Service Motor Truck Company of Wabash, Indiana, manufactured delivery and repair trucks for industrial buyers. Service made four-ton and five-ton trucks designed for delivery and freight service, and they provided trucks to the U.S. Army during World War I. Scudder Motor Truck Company operated a dealership and repair shop in the facility, and the company attracted suitable co-tenants offering related services, such as W.L. Armstrong’s Tire Shop and Local Auto Paint Company.

In the years before, and certainly after, the Great Depression arrived in late 1929, Scudder dealt with issues that affected its business health. In 1927, Service, which had added airplane and interurban streetcar production to its portfolio, went into receivership, and then acquired by Relay Motors. In the 1930s, motor vehicle production and sales plummeted. Indeed, automobile sales across the board fell seventy-five percent between 1929 and 1933, and production in 1932 fell to pre-1918 levels. Hence, in 1937, the Scudder Motor Truck Company ceased its operations. 

In 1937, four years after the repeal of Prohibition, the Falstaff Brewing Company purchased the building to use as its warehouse and garage, maintaining its fleet of delivery trucks. In 1947, the brewery built a repair bay and machine shop addition on the east end of the building; the brewing operation vacated the building in 1952. 

Since the 1950s, the building has been the home to a few commercial enterprises, with United Automotive Products, Inc. its most recent occupant. A current renovation project by Carriage Works will likely change much of the building's appearance. The plan states, "Constructed for a carriage manufacturer more than a century ago, the 35,000sf Carriage Works building is being reinvented for Office and Lab tenants..." The redevelopment will include new storefronts, skylights, floors, and systems in the building and widened sidewalks, pedestrian lighting, street trees, and a new parking lot outside."

Allen, Michael R. "Registration Form: Scudder Motor Truck Company Building." National Register of Historic Places. mostateparks.com. 2011. https://www.mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/Scudder%20Motor%20Truck%20Co.%20Bldg.pdf.

"The Rise of the Automobile." Scientific American 112, no. 23 (1915): 521–56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26022220.

Smil, Vaclav. Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing. The MIT Press, 2013.