By Glenn Rolfe

GEORGETOWN — Passerby curiosity and a warm invite have brought a nostalgic chapter of Americana retail to the Nutter D. Marvel Carriage Museum.

Carriages have been removed and the former Quonset hut storage barn has been transformed, renovated from top to bottom to make way for Maurice Sanger’s step-back-in-time exhibit that brings the Western Auto era to life.

“(We’re) walking back in time,” said Jim Bowden, president of the Georgetown Historical Society, which owns and operates the Marvel Museum on South Bedford Street.

With finishing touches for the exhibit in the works, a grand opening will be planned soon in compliance with COVID-19 public health requirements, he said.

Detailed replication and authenticity are the name of the game throughout Mr. Sanger’s collection and store display, which spans Western Auto’s immense retail gamut and his lifelong career with the company, including decades as owner of two family-friendly franchises.

Bicycles, a Western Clipper sled, model trains and train accessories headlined by Lionel, sporting equipment that includes baseball shoes with metal cleats, toys, holiday items, air rifles, a full stock of automotive supplies including car batteries and motor oil in quart cans are just a sliver of memorabilia that is showcased.

Catalogs — including those from 1909 when Western Auto was born — historic photographs, original credit cards, signage and even drivers’ belt buckles, caps and shirts are also part of this blast from the past.

For older folks who grew up decades ago in Georgetown, it will be like walking into the former Demhoff’s Western Auto on Market Street, Mr. Bowden said.

“It’s one of the things where you can see it’s a stop in time. A lot of times you have memories, but this, in my mind, people can walk in here,” he said. “And I’ve seen men almost get tears in their eyes. … ‘My God, my first gun I bought at Western Auto’ … or ‘my first .22 or BB gun.’”

An old-time manual cash register and a land-based telephone from the bygone era augment the store’s themed layout.

There’s even a life-in-the-fast-lane salute to former NASCAR star Darrell Waltrip, whose cars were primarily sponsored by Western Auto for seven years in the 1990s.

How this all came to be is a marvelous story of chance and opportunity.

“It was like a fluke,” Mr. Bowden said. “Mr. Sanger, he and his wife moved to Rehoboth. He was coming to change his license to Delaware, to (the Division of Motor Vehicles) right down the road, so he drove by (the museum).”

Recalling the day he and his wife, Ellen, passed by, Mr. Sanger said, “I had a Maryland license, and I had to get it moved around. There was nobody here. We came back and rode around in the parking lot, and we said, ‘This is a beautiful place.’ I called and left my name. We got together.’”

Mr. Sanger and his family were no strangers to Sussex County.

“We were coming every weekend. We’ve been coming for years. We’d go through Georgetown, and I remember going through Georgetown with the kids, when we’d go down to Rehoboth to spend our vacation, … and the (Western Auto) store was there then,” said Mr. Sanger. “We’d always stop in everybody’s stores and get ideas.”

Lifelong passion

Mr. Sanger’s exhibit is part of a longtime passion, from his working days in 1947 as a 12-year-old boy in a Western Auto in Easton, Maryland, to his family’s franchise ownership of two other Maryland stores, in Centreville and Kent Island.

Mr. Sanger and Ellen have six children — a son, who is the oldest, and five daughters.
“They all came through the system. They all helped during school,” Mr. Sanger said. “It was a love between us. I had a chance to be with them while they were in the store, and they had an opportunity to learn things. It worked out well.

“It was always franchised dealerships who I worked for. I started at 12 and actually retired about six or seven years ago,” said Mr. Sanger, who worked through his teen years at the Easton store until he went into the National Guard.

After that service, it was a full-time career with Western Auto. And collecting.

“I started in 1957 collecting trains. Then, from there, I was just collecting old things. In 2003, … the company actually went out of business, the Western Auto company. They were bought out by Sears, and then, Advance Auto Parts bought them out,” said Mr. Sanger. “We have changed it to Western Tire & Auto. We still have a store on Kent Island. That is the one we started over 50 years ago. When my son became old enough, he took that one over, on Kent Island just before the (Chesapeake) Bay Bridge.”

Buyout resulted in the slight name change.

“We had to sign an agreement we would give up rights to the franchise, the name,” said Mr. Sanger. “In doing so, we didn’t want to lose our identity, so we went to Western Tire & Auto.”

Perfect match

From their initial conversation, a partnership was born between Mr. Bowden and Mr. Sanger.

“I wanted him to see the layout and whether this fit for him,” said Mr. Bowden. “Certainly, not even seeing (the collection), I was just enthused because (as) I grew up, Western Auto was my go-to place. At Christmastime, Western Auto was my toy store — Western Flyers and everything that they had. It was just exciting to talk. We kind of felt like this was the right thing to do. The tough thing was the transition. I didn’t have room. We worked together.”

As the store reincarnation progressed at the museum, Mr. Sanger and other helping hands worked around carriages and wagons, until they could be relocated.

“We moved most carriages out of here — Mr. Sanger and his guys moving them — to accommodate the new walls and new ceiling,” said Mr. Bowden. “Eventually, I got it out, so we could do the floors. It was a labor of love because we went on a lot of faith. It just flowed.”

There are authentic themes to the layout and displays.

“Mr. Sanger, he had a plan, a game plan. It was serious: This goes here, pictures and everything,” said Mr. Bowden. “It could have been anywhere. Having this at home, he was going, ‘OK, what am I going to do with this?’ Obviously, this is one of his life’s loves, except for his wife … and his (children). Here we’ve got these new residents of Sussex County, and they have given to the county already. That was my thought.”

Mr. Sanger added, “I certainly didn’t want it to get lost. It’s too much time and love.”

Labor of love

Mr. Sanger’s collection is not an overnight sensation by any stretch. It has evolved over decades, through pawn shop visits, other excursions and extensive travel to snag a few pieces of memorabilia here and other nostalgic items there.

“When Western Auto went out of business in 2003, we really got excited about collecting things because we wanted to find everything that had their name on it,” said Mr. Sanger. “So we chased all over in the United States. We felt like the ‘American Pickers’! We had one daughter that just couldn’t get enough of traveling with us, rooting in places and pulling stuff out of buildings.

“Some of the experiences we had meeting people on the road … we went to the Carolinas, Florida, Alabama. We found one store that was a Western Auto store that was converted into a pawn shop.”

The collection’s vintage Western Clipper sled sports its original price sticker: $18.99. Mr. Sanger chuckled when saying he had to pay more than that decades-old price.

“It was in an antique store. I offered $18.99, but she wouldn’t take it.”

The hunt for memorabilia has encountered good and bad luck.

“I found something in Charlottesville, Virginia — an old Western Auto pedal tractor,” said Mr. Sanger. “But I didn’t bring it. I didn’t have enough room!”

Western Auto history

In Western Auto’s heyday, there were about 5,200 stores and franchises nationwide.
Many towns in the United States had a store. Locally, the list included Georgetown, Millsboro, Rehoboth Beach, Laurel, Seaford, Lewes, Dover, Smyrna, Middletown, Newark and Glasgow.

“I was looking back, and at that point, we were like the Walmarts today. We had everything — a little bit of electrical supplies, plumbing, bolts and nuts. Then, eventually, in 1984, they went dominant automotive. They created what they called flag-stores,” Mr. Sanger said. “They were like ma and pa operations, where the husband and wife usually ran the store.”