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Welcome to the Parker Area Historical Society! |
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The lot upon which the Warhorse sits was once part of the original Littleton Creamery Facility at Parker. The creamery was built in 1897 on property donated by George Parker. It was one of many milk separation stations built adjoining railroad lines, up and down the front range, and East into Kansas and Nebraska. The purpose of the facility was to separate the butterfat in milk, from the whole milk, and then ship the cream into Denver to be made into butter. At the time of the plants construction, the home separator had not found its way into use in the common farm home. The Littleton Creamery went out of business in 1912, and the property was sold, first to the Beatrice Creamery Co, and then a short time later to Royal ( Roy ) J. Woodbury of Parker.
Roy refurbished the creamery building into a comfortable home in which he lived for a time. He and two cousins, Walter & Marvin Davis of Evergreen had a brick garage and gas station constructed on an unused part of the creamery property. The gasoline pumps used were Bowser, Red Sentry, pre-visible curbside units.
Sometime between February of 1916, when Hood & Senter, local bankers had the Ford Distributorship, and March of 1917, the Ford Distributorship passed to the garage. From 1919 thru 1920 the business was run by J.A. Watson. From 1921, thru 1922, Bon McBreen and Art Crater had an interest. During 1923, the proprietors were a man named Hudson, and again Art Crater. Then from 1924 until he sold the business to Simon Flierl in late 1928, Art Crater was the sole proprietor. Simon operated the business from the time of purchase until, tired of labor shortages because of the war, he sold the business to the Ryan Bros. in 1944.
The building has had a history of destructive fires. The first was in December of 1923 when fire started in the workshop and badly damaged a car belonging to T.K. Tiedman. On April 3, 1929, the garage burned to the ground and along with it several vehicles and a tractor inside at the time. The building was rebuilt by the Charles O´Brien construction Company, using plans similar to the original building, except that the windows were of a different more modern style.
Site created by Alex Hernandez, Alvie Sellmer, & James Vallejos 2009