Back story: I have a great LBS. The back room is a bicycle boneyard with lots of old stuff to pick over, and the owner is usually willing to chat about bikes and local history. I've found a number of parts, frames, and even whole bikes there that made great projects, so the guy knows me when I come in.
So I picked up this old Corvette at an antique mall just before New Year's. The bike store sticker on it says John R. Grove Schwinn. After a little Googling, I discovered that this was the name of my beloved LBS many years ago. So I fixed it up and brought it in to show the owner. "Oh yeah," he said. "I see those stickers from time to time. Did you see the piece about John Grove in the local paper not long ago?"
In fact, I had not. So he filled me in:
John R. Grove was at one time a famous motorcycle hillclimb racer. He rode for Harley-Davidson in the 1920s and sold Harley-Davidson motorcycles in his shop. Some of that story is here:
https://www.yahoo.com/now/chambersburgs-john-r-grove-king-100529089.html
But the local color part is better. Apparently, Grove was caught making moonshine and went to prison for something like 5 years. The story goes that the police came to arrest him on Harley-Davidson motorcycles that he had just sold them. When he got out, or so it goes, the mark on his name from having been in jail prevented him from getting back into motorcycle racing. So he continued to sell bicycles out of the shop till he sold it in 1977.
The part that interests me: This is an old picture of the shop. Grove originally lived in the house and built the little shop next to it in 1921:
This must have been taken between 1977 and 1988, when the second owner had it.
Here's a picture of the shop as it stands today. The current owner knocked the house down and that space is now a parking lot for the shop. That shop has been in business as a bike shop for 102 years.
I showed the current owner the sticker on my bike. He said he knows of a few bikes with these stickers.
He told me some of the history above and showed me drawings of the shop from the past, and pictures of Grove on his Harleys. Then he said that for years after he bought the business in 1988, old-timers would come in and tell him about the days when the shop was a community hangout. They sold candy and cigarettes and folks would sit around the pot-bellied stove in the middle of the shop and tell stories. That stove was still there (on a dirt floor!) when he took over in 1988.
It sounds dumb, but knowing all that makes this bike seem a whole lot more special now.
So I picked up this old Corvette at an antique mall just before New Year's. The bike store sticker on it says John R. Grove Schwinn. After a little Googling, I discovered that this was the name of my beloved LBS many years ago. So I fixed it up and brought it in to show the owner. "Oh yeah," he said. "I see those stickers from time to time. Did you see the piece about John Grove in the local paper not long ago?"
In fact, I had not. So he filled me in:
John R. Grove was at one time a famous motorcycle hillclimb racer. He rode for Harley-Davidson in the 1920s and sold Harley-Davidson motorcycles in his shop. Some of that story is here:
https://www.yahoo.com/now/chambersburgs-john-r-grove-king-100529089.html
But the local color part is better. Apparently, Grove was caught making moonshine and went to prison for something like 5 years. The story goes that the police came to arrest him on Harley-Davidson motorcycles that he had just sold them. When he got out, or so it goes, the mark on his name from having been in jail prevented him from getting back into motorcycle racing. So he continued to sell bicycles out of the shop till he sold it in 1977.
The part that interests me: This is an old picture of the shop. Grove originally lived in the house and built the little shop next to it in 1921:
This must have been taken between 1977 and 1988, when the second owner had it.
Here's a picture of the shop as it stands today. The current owner knocked the house down and that space is now a parking lot for the shop. That shop has been in business as a bike shop for 102 years.
I showed the current owner the sticker on my bike. He said he knows of a few bikes with these stickers.
He told me some of the history above and showed me drawings of the shop from the past, and pictures of Grove on his Harleys. Then he said that for years after he bought the business in 1988, old-timers would come in and tell him about the days when the shop was a community hangout. They sold candy and cigarettes and folks would sit around the pot-bellied stove in the middle of the shop and tell stories. That stove was still there (on a dirt floor!) when he took over in 1988.
It sounds dumb, but knowing all that makes this bike seem a whole lot more special now.
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