My van sojourns in the West take me through many small towns and hamlets invariably populated by a very high percentage of curbside classics. I’ve shot and shown many examples here over the years, but for some time I’ve been wanting to stop and document a whole town’s worth. Last week a perfect opportunity arose, and the results follow: every older car and truck that was visible from driving the streets of Harrington (pop. 424), situated among the endless wheat fields of Eastern Washington.
And what brought me here?
In my search of solitude, hiking and unspoiled scenery, I decided to spend a couple of days exploring the Channeled Scablands of east-central Washington before I headed to the Seattle area to visit my brother. I found both there in abundance.
I was totally alone at Twin Lakes, where I camped next to the babbling brook that connects the two lakes.
The scablands were formed by the incalculably powerful and repeated glacial floods unleashed by Glacial Lake Missoula during the Ice Age. These floods scoured the soil and exposed the underlying basalt, creating bluffs, channels, craters, dry falls and depressions, some of which are now lakes.
Springtime turns the usually dry and mostly barren soil bright green. One can hike anywhere for miles without trails. This is exactly the kind of place I am increasingly drawn to; not necessarily spectacular at first sight, but that just means it’s not popular. On the morning I needed to head to Seattle, I consulted my trusty paper atlas for a suitable route. I noticed that the town of Harrington also had a notation “The Studebaker Garage”. Although Harrington was to the east and out of my way, I decided to check it out.
image from the web
The endless wheat fields of eastern Washington are amazing. They go on and on, without a farm house or building to be seen for miles. Not surprisingly, Harrington and all the other little rural towns out here are along the railroad tracks, and exist solely to service the fields and store the wheat in their elevators until the rail cars haul it away.
Before starting my drive through town, I pulled over on the main street to take in the few vintage brick buildings from the time when Harrington and all these towns were more prosperous and had hotels and other significant businesses.
There’s a palpable effort to honor Harrington’s history and its buildings. This hotel is supposedly being renovated and will reopen as a boutique hotel and events facility in the future.
I headed down this way, looking for the Studebaker Garage.
After the town’s last barber died his shop was turned into an exhibit.
A former implement dealer.
A couple of vintage John Deere tractors were in the showroom.
These looks to be a crawler conversion of a JD Model A.
The town’s only grocery store has a rather limited selection, but it’s still going.
Beyond that, I saw the sign for the Studebaker Garage. Would it be filled with Studebakers?
It was closed, but a look through the garage door showed a ’63 Ford and some other less interesting cars. Bummer.
The former showroom is now filled with all sorts of memorabilia.
I did a bit of Googling, and it turns out this was actually a former Ford dealer. The Studebaker Garage is an impostor!
This side of the building still has sports the blue oval, and there’s the original faded “Ford” above that. And there’s a Chevy “box” truck, the first of many. I didn’t actually count, but my guess is that Chevy pickups were the most common CC to be seen in Harrington.
So is this old Ford pickup resting in front of the former Chevy dealer?
Let’s start the driving tour…
Starting off with another box Chevy, and an old Subaru wagon just past the Dakota.
Just to clarify: I did not shoot the newer cars in town, like these behind the Bronco II in the teachers’ parking lot at the elementary school. Unlike these, the rest were overwhelmingly newer pickups and big SUVs.
I’m not going to comment on all of the following ones.
A gen1 Kia Sportage
Saturn L Series
Every town has to have one Corvette
A gen1 Camry next to a BMW
Ford Escort GT and a Mitsubishi or Dodge Ram pickup
This is a fairly common sight: a collection of old trucks in the back.
Mazda Pickup
Another side/backyard collection of trucks. Can’t bear to get rid of them. But then where would one get rid of them? The nearest scrapyard is probably quite a distance away. Easier to just set them out back.
A nice grouping showing the changing taste in cars over the decades.
That’s a sweet old International 4×4 pickup and the outboard is a very early 75 hp Johnson OMC V4. Looks to be from 1959, as best as I can tell. That’s also the approximate vintage of the International. Coincidence?
An old Dodge bus. It looks ex-military to me, due to the tall roof. Kids didn’t get that luxury. If the color is original, it might well be an Air Force bus.
The box body is clearly a former U-haul unit, but the cab looks awfully nice for that.
This was one of the better finds, an Eagle SX/4, parked right below some parked hopper cars. And there’s a shrine of sorts in front.
A B&W version of my truck and what I think might be an old Dodge.
No less than an Isuzu Amigo along with other toys.
Is it a Montego or a Sable?
The only VW in town is a late-model air-cooled Beetle.
And the sole Mercedes, a very fine W124 300T wagon with a Chevy Caprice behind it. A Mercury Cougar is in the distance.
Here’s the tail end of the Cougar and a Ranger keeping an eye on it.
The former City Hall, with some of the grain elevators by the railroad tracks. Due to steady population loss, a much smaller City Hall office is now in one of the other buildings.
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More storage silos and more old pickups. The two main commodities of Harrington.
The best find of the town: a gen2 Barracuda coupe. Now I regret not getting out to take more pictures as I’ve never written one up.
The BNSF trains rumble through town regularly, with loads of goods from China in this case.
On the edge of town by the highway, I had noticed some old pickups lined up as if for sale. As I was looping through town, I came to the same compound of buildings and vehicles.
Just as I got out to start shooting some fine old farm trucks like this International Loadstar, the proprietor drove up. It seems that he’s trying to make some sort of living from picking these up cheap and selling them. He asked if we sold cars on this site. I said we’re not a sales site, but if anyone is interested, I’d tell them where to find him. He told me to help myself and walk through his collection out back.
The sun has turned this formerly red tractor pink. I thought it might be a Cockshutt, but it looks to be something else.
This vintage International has become rather rare.
I immediately thought of Jason Shafer.
An International tow truck.
A Ford F850 Super Duty, back when that name meant something. I’ll be writing this one up in more detail.
Let’s finish up the loop through town.
A fairly rare one-year ’66 Ranchero.
The city’s old Elgin sweeper is in retirement.
That’s it. I passed through several similar little towns on the way there and on the way to Seattle, and each of them also had scads of old trucks and cars. Maybe next time?
A fine collection of Pics! And trucks!
Lots of good stuff packed into a town of 424. The town where I grew up had a (then) population of 450 and none of the goodies as can be found here.
That Mercury is a sweetie. Some glass, tires, and fuel and she looks to be good to hit the road. The antenna on the driver’s front fender is a monster; I can only imagine the radio it was hooked to.
There is also a mighty sweet Dodge pickup found in a few of these pictures, also. It can be seen in the picture showing the mid-80s F-250 facing the camera, surrounded by totes, and the Dodge is in the back, facing the building.
Given the length of time it was built, along with production volumes, seeing the number of GM square body pickups stands to reason. No doubt their parts interchangeability helps with the survival rate.
That blue F-250 (below the Barracuda) is an attention getter.
The purple Taurus (below the Elgin sweeper) is identical to the first catfish Taurus I drove.
It appears Harrington is doing similar to the town where I grew up. There is a group dedicated to preserving the history of the town, which is truly admirable as it reminds people of the town’s vibrancy and relevance (however recent that may be). However, the downside is the number of people who can fully appreciate this history is dwindling. But maybe that’s just me. Regardless, I admire the effort but it’s also somewhat bittersweet to see.
Paul, I’m glad you documented this. There are certain elements of it that remind me of where I grew up, not just the history preservation component.
Even for a small Western farm town, this seems like a distinctive collection. TWO Bronco II’s AND an Isuzu Amigo AND an Eagle SX/4 are not common finds all in one place. Just a note: the gray pickup in front of the blue house is a Mazda, not Mitsubishi. I know you know that 😀
I do, but I obviously had Mitsubishi on the brain, and the two really do look quite similar:
The Ford dealer was obviously in town and Chevy was likely as well, perhaps the Dodge dealer was in (at best) the next town over? And whoever owned the IH franchise seems to have been cleaning up back then!
I like the red 78 or 79 Bronco shown in one picture. When I drive thru small towns and see Buick Cadillac, Olds etc. rusting away behind someone’s house, I always think that car was someone’s pride and joy one day long ago.
Nice look at the town of Harrington, Washington. I love to drive around rural areas and look for “landmark cars.” To me a landmark car is either an older model of a curbside classic generation that is still driven or is a landmark that hasn’t moved in some time. I love seeing how long the landmark cars stay in that place or how long it takes them to disappear. Cars in small towns tend to stay for a long time especially in rural areas. Here in Maine rust tend to get to many of them. The salt brine they use on roads tends to rust the underside of cars and trucks pretty quickly. Maybe 8-10 years or so. Sound like a fun day and neat to see how towns go into decline but many of the buildings stay. People still there tend to live somewhat in memories of the more prosperous times. Thanks for the road trip! :)!
Reminds me of a few villages in southeastern Ontario. Strong and dedicated effort, showing pride in the community. But the heritage aspect may not be enough to draw more valuable tourism. These are the types of communities worth investing in. A more vibrant main street would help. Would also draw more professionals willing to start up small businesses, to help a service industry grow. Serving tourism. Drawing more visitors from places like Spokane.
Great selection and photos!
Eastern Washington in summer feels like nothing but wheat fields and wind turbines. We were out there a few years ago on our way to ride the Trail of the Couer d’Alenes. If you are out there again Ritzville has a restored train depot with an impressive telegraph equipment collection and some care related signs and buildings. It’s sad to me how these rural small towns are drying up, or showing a juxtaposition of gentrification and depression.
The scrapyard reminds me of the big collection on Highway 31 near Paisley since we were down at Summer Lake this week.
If you map Harrington and zoom out, there are hundreds of small towns in eastern Washington (Washtuckna! Kalotus! Starbuck! Zumwalt!) Back when a daughter was in WSU (Go Cougs!) and we’d make the drive to Pullman, I’d take different routes just to pass through as many towns as possible. I was always struck by the variety and number of old cars and trucks just sitting there. And unlike the wet side of the state, not rusting all that much.
The two inters are the same model B? possibly a mate in OZ had a flat 110 deck and travelall that model
A great way to spend a few hours. Thanks for sharing. Many of the colours, and two tone colours schemes, are very familiar. Only I haven’t seen live in decades. The International and two Square Body colour combos, bring me right back to the late ’70s. Even the bed cap on the foreground example, goes right back to that era.
Definitely, a tourism aspect to spotting these CCs. Can understand to a degree, why it might appear like hoarding to outsiders. But what justifies, junking perfectly maintainable (and valuable) 40 year vehicles? Even if having them sitting around, may not have the best look.
I’ve seen remote properties here in Ontario, have owners attempt to gather CCs, and townships will occasionally go after them.
The Ford two door is a 1939 Standard?
Hoot and a half. The Barracuda will clearly win as town parade car.
Super cool story. I enjoyed it a lot. I love these type of landscapes you show in the beginning. The brick hotel reminds me of some of Jim Grey’s picture when he tours Illinois on his blog. All the great cars and trucks. I want to save the Mercury Monterey. I can’t really with 11 cars as it is. Your opening shots remind me of my Las Vegas trip in March. I don’t like the Vegas scene at all, but once outside in the country, I am at peace…
Sigh. It’s amazing what is still to be found in the US. Nothing like this here in Europe, cars either rust into nothing or forced to be scrapped by the authorities. There are interesting vehicles to be found but they’re likely to be behind the closed doors of a farmhouse, safe from spying eyes and pestering officials.
…and thank you Paul for documenting all these vehicles!
I am just being envious…
Old trucks tend to live a long time in small town or country locations, and even longer where rust is less of a factor. I loved all of the Internationals, especially that baby blue/white 1970’s model.
And I think the white/clear taillight lenses mark that Mercury as a 2008+ Sable rather than the 2005-07 Montego. I was thinking about those the other day – are there still any Ford 500s/Mercury Montegos still on the road given their troublesome CVT transmissions? I have not seen one in ages.
Great stuff, I like the Pontiac and all those Internationals, we saw a lot of those west of Wisconsin on our road trip.
We were pretty close, picking up Miss Erin D at Spokane State airport before heading to British Columbia. Ford Focus road test to follow.
The interior rural West is hollowing out and some small towns are barely hanging on. I’d love to see these sparsely settled areas East of the Cascades. Our son-in-law’s Dad is from Burns OR, a similar small town, struggling to survive.
The outboard is 1959 Evinrude (same as Johnson except styling) 50 hp, second year of the mighty OMC V-4… great engines but real gas hogs, and carb overflow dumps directly into the water, giving a nice colorful rainbow sheen all around! Fixed in the 1960 75 version.
*VERY* pretty pictures Paul ;
Nice old vehicles too .
The VW is a 1973 .
-Nate
Great tour of country that I have not seen. It is hard to believe that so much old iron is in this town. I hope that the people of Harrington succeed in preserving their burg and someday see it surge to prominence.
Thank you Paul for this repost of your trip. The weather here in Mpls has been much warmer than usual we’ve been stuck under thick fog and overcast for the past week solid. Seeing all your great shots of Harrison, WA scenery is a welcome pick me up and deepens my love for the Pacific Northwest on either side of the Cascade range. Most Midwesterners that have traveled to the PNW talk about is wide geological variety in sacred terms and I count myself among them.
Good stuff.
Seems a lot of the pictured cars were not running. How many runners vs non-runners would you say? What is the overall carscape like? Are most running cars past the national 10 or so year old median age?
Yang Ming is actually a Taiwanese shipping company, not Chinese. Of course the goods could still be from China, or anywhere else in the world.
Terrific tour! Thanks for bringing the landscape and this old town to the fore.
So representative of many small towns in north Louisiana where I went to college. The kids in these towns made a decision by 18; either I stay or I want out!! Many would commute 40 miles round trip a day just to get a degree and move on. The military was the other means of flight.
As time moved on, a few towns dis-incorporated because there wasn’t enough people and tax money. They would rely on the parish (ie: county in the rest of the US) for fire and police protection.
Next time you come through Harrington, just give a little advance notice and there could be more cars out in the open, or you could go through on the 3rd weekend in May and see 150+ classics during the car show.