These motorists didn't have to soil their nice clothes to repair that flat tire. Instead, they just used one of the handy "trouble boxes" set along Memphis roadsides by the 6-3-8 Tire Company. Lucky for them they broke down right in front of one!
Dear Vance: I recently found an old advertising brochure dated 1920 for Burroughs adding machines, and it devotes considerable space to the 6-3-8 Tire Company in Memphis. What can you tell me about this business? – B.K., Memphis.
Dear B.K.: When you first mentioned this brochure to me, I presumed it would be filled with pictures of old adding and calculating machines, with perhaps a brief mention of a tire company who was a client. What was I to make of that?
Instead, as I read further, I was pleasantly surprised to find not only did it include images of the company and its rather bold logo, but it describes a distinctly unusual business. Roadside service, it seems, is nothing new — and the 6-3-8 Tire and Vulcanizing Company approached it in a rather innovative way.
First of all, the brochure introduces a character named Bill Jones, who runs into trouble: “Suppose Bill Jones decides to take a fellow golfer out to the Colonial Country Club in his new roadster. About the middle of the journey there is an explosion like a rifle shot, and one of Bill’s front tires runs flat. Even the most careful drivers run into tacks or glass at different times.”
Now, most people would have to replace that tire — assuming they carried a spare, of course.
Not with the 6-3-8 Tire Company around. “Instead of having to jack up the car, remove the damaged tire, put on a new tire, and in the meantime ruin a perfectly good suit, Bill looks up the road and sees a white box attached to a telephone pole,” the saga continues. “Quickly he walks to the box, opens it, and says something like this into the receiver he finds there: ‘Hello, Six-Thirty-Eight? This is Jones — Bill Jones. I’m out here on the road to the Colonial Club — yes, about three miles out. Blow-out, front tire. Yes, 34 by 4. All right, make it snappy.”
(Did you notice that “Jones — Bill Jones” part? I wonder if Ian Fleming read this same booklet when he was writing all those James Bond stories, where 007 always introduces himself by saying, “My name is Bond — James Bond.”)
But I digress, because now it really gets interesting. In just 15 minutes, so the story goes, “A yellow roadster comes tearing along, stops at Bill’s car, the driver gets out with a tire already inflated, takes off the punctured tire, replaces it with the tire he has brought along from Bill Jones’ locker, tightens up the rim bolts, removes the jack, and is gone.”
Here is why this company interests me. In the 1920s, the 6-3-8 Tire Company went to the trouble to place 100 special “trouble boxes,” similar to the one Bill Jones used, “along the principal thoroughfares of Memphis and environs within a radius of 30 miles.” That’s really quite an undertaking. And, if you were paying attention, the 6-3-8 service guy brought a tire “from Jones’ locker.” It seems this company had some sort of membership program, where their customers maintained lockers full of spare parts for their cars.
The booklet explains, “Customers are furnished with keys to unlock the boxes in time of trouble, and when a call is received, one of the 25 service cars, ready day and night, leaves for the scene of the trouble. Service cars are painted a bright yellow, and the figures 6-3-8 are displayed on both sides.”
This was a rather massive operation, if the illustration from the company letterhead is any indication. Of course, the cars weren't really THAT small.
Judging from images published in this booklet, this was a large operation, described on their stationery as “the most complete tire repair shop in the South.” That same letterhead shows a big two-level building located at the northwest corner of Union and Dudley, in the heart of the old “Auto Row.” This was a stretch of Union Avenue that was home to more than a hundred new and used car dealerships, garages, paint and body shops, and other automobile-related businesses.
Now, I should explain 638 wasn’t the street address of the company; it was their telephone number. Back in the early days of telephones, when a call meant dialing just three numbers, quite a few companies took this approach, which seems rather confusing today, especially since the names could be numerical or spelled out. For example, in the early 1920s, Memphians needing tire repairs could choose from the Eight-Sixteen Tire Company (also listed as the 8-1-6 Tire Company in ads), the Five-Fifteen Tire Company, the Five-Fourteen Tire Company, the Four-Sixteen Tire Company — you get the picture. How could anyone remember if they had taken their car to 5-1-5 or 5-1-4?
As the booklet emphasized, however, “Every Memphis motorist is familiar with the figures 6-3-8.”
Okay, so who was behind this venture, and how long did it last? It seems the company was established here in 1912 by an enterprising fellow named Walter Hunter. As far as I was able to determine, Hunter was born in Memphis in 1877. At an early age, he teamed up with a brother, Chatham Hunter, to form the Tennessee Construction Company. It was incredibly farsighted of him, if you ask me, to open such a full-service automobile repair center, considering that the new “horseless carriages” had only begun appearing in Memphis barely 10 years before. But he recognized the constant need for tire repairs, especially considering the terrible condition of local streets and roads, many of them unpaved.
Even from the beginning the 6-3-8 Tire Company offered Firestone tires and other accessories for automobiles, trucks and even motorcycles. The “vulcanizing” part of the name, by the way, was a trade term that referred to a specific way of manufacturing and repairing rubber tires.
I presume business remained steady over the years, based on the size and number of the company ads in old newspapers and city directories. In 1929, however, the company changed its name to Walter Hunter, Inc. This was a practical decision. By this time, the increasing number of telephones in Memphis far exceeded the limits of the old phone system. Telephone numbers were now four and five digits, often preceded by an exchange number; to reach the former 6-3-8 Tire Company, customers now had to dial 2-3177, and Hunter surely realized that a company called the Two-Dash-Three-One-Seven-Seven Tire Company simply wouldn’t work. So he named it after himself.
Hunter remained in business at Union and Dudley until 1944, when he sold the property to Felix Williams Used Cars. He remained on Auto Row, moving east to 682 Union, where he operated an Esso filling station. I wonder what he did with that nice fleet of yellow cars? For years he and his wife, Reona, lived on the sixth floor of the Gilmore at Madison and McLean, as well as other apartment buildings on Somerville and Pauline in Midtown.
When Hunter passed away in 1953, at age 76, his gas station was taken over by his former business partner, James Gandy, followed by other owners. The building has survived, standing empty next to Domino’s Pizza.
And what about the old structure at Union and Dudley that once housed the 6-3-8 Tire Company? That came down in the 1960s to make way for an expansion of Baptist Memorial Hospital. The site is a grassy lot today, part of the Memphis Bioworks Foundation property.
The old booklet concludes, “The heads of the company have made 6-3-8 Tire stand for paramount service.’” I’m sure Bill Jones — if that was his real name — and many other customers certainly thought so.
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazine.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38103
Online: memphismagazine.com/ask-vance
