Last year, I wrote about the Bruce Carriage Company, and told the story of a family-owned business that manufactured carts, carriages, buggies, surreys, phaetons — just about everything that could be pulled by a horse or mule, it seems.
Thanks to my pal, Melody Birdsong, who collects Neat Old Things, I was also able to share with you one of the company's sales catalogs from the 1800s, so you could see for yourself how extensive their operation was, operating out of a building on Monroe. Take a look at that story right now; I'll wait until you get back.
Even though I thought I did a halfway-decent job of talking about the firm and its various owners, I always felt bad that I wasn't able to show you the company buildings — until now. And I'm only able to do so because an eBay seller from Dallas is offering this 1899 bill from Bruce, which includes a detailed illustration of the property as it looked in its heyday.
As you can see, Bruce operated out of a five-story building on Monroe, with an incredibly detailed facade. Look carefully, and you can see "Bruce" at the very top of the structure, but you didn't need to look that high to figure out what was sold here. A huge painted sign on one side of the building told customers that this was a "carriage repository" and also offered wholesale saddlery, iron, and heavy hardware.
The billhead itself shows that the company was separated into three departments. The Carriage Department offered "all styles and grades" (as I mentioned in my earlier article). The Saddlery Department included jobbers in saddlery and harness, along with "collars, bridles & strapwork." And the Iron Store Department was composed of "jobbers in iron and heavy hardware." How heavy? Well, not only did they sell carriage and wagon materials, but they apparently they even sold anvils.
My goodness, how in the world did they fit all this extremely heavy and bulky merchandise into that building on Monroe?
The bill listed a variety of items sold to R.H. Norris in Childress, Texas — further proof that the Bruce Company's business territory stretched wide and far from Memphis. What's frustrating, however, is that the handwritten sales list (scribbled in pencil, even) is too hard to read — and everything is abbreviated, so I can't tell exactly what Mr. (or Mrs.) Norris actually purchased. I can make out "rim" and "clips" and "bdls" (which I presume is bridles), but that's about it. The total bill, it seems, came to $23.74.
The Bruce Carriage Company, as I said earlier, was an extensive, successful, and long-lasting enterprise that remained in the Bruce family for decades. But when the newfangled automobiles hit the streets of America, they faced competition that shut them down. Looking at the wonderful building here, though, it's amazing that no trace of it stands today.
The eBay auction for this items ends Tuesday afternoon, so if you're interested in this old piece of Americana, don't dawdle.
