Category: History || By

Alert Reader Randy B. recently wrote Tube City Almanac to ask:

I have a small disagreement with another McKeesport alumnus. I maintain that J.P. Mooney Packard was originally at the corner of Fifth and Huey. He maintains that it was always at the foot of Hartman Street.

I am confident of my memory as my stepfather bought a '52 Packard from Mooney and it was by then at the Hartman location. Can you verify this or at least point me in the right direction to prove or disprove this?

I love these kinds of questions, because they are completely pointless, yet they are exactly the type of thing that keeps me up at nights.

Using old telephone books and copies of the Polk City Directory (available at Carnegie Library of McKeesport and McKeesport Heritage Center), we were able to determine that in 1941 and 1944, John P. Mooney Co. was located at the corner of Fifth and Huey streets.

Although the exact address provided no longer exists, it seems to have been on Fifth Avenue, catty-corner from the present Sunoco station that faces Lysle Boulevard.

By 1950, Mooney Packard was at Fifth and Hartman --- specifically, 2409 Fifth Ave. in the East End, which is currently an automatic car wash.

. . .

Mooney's dealership had an interesting history. In the 1920s, John P. Mooney was in business at Fifth and Huey selling Overland automobiles, an all but forgotten make of cars that was nevertheless extremely popular before the Great Depression.

Overlands were manufactured by the Willys-Overland Co. of Toledo, Ohio, which went onto greater fame as builder of Jeeps during World War II.

The Willys company would eventually be acquired by industrialist and steel tycoon Henry J. Kaiser, and then by American Motors Corp. It survives --- at least in spirit --- in the Jeep division of Chrysler Corp. Until recently, in fact, the old Overland plant in Toledo was still used by Chrysler to build Jeeps.

. . .

By 1946, Mooney was selling the Packard, another all-but-forgotten brand of car. During the 1920s, Packards were considered among the finest American cars --- on a par with Rolls-Royce --- and were driven by celebrities and millionaires.

But the Great Depression wasn't kind to car manufacturers, especially not to companies making expensive luxury vehicles. Packard launched new lower-priced cars, the 120 and the Clipper, which saved the company at least temporarily, but diluted its luxury image.

After World War II, a newly resurgent Cadillac --- backed by the superior financial power of General Motors --- usurped Packard's place as America's premier luxury car, and the smaller company went into a tailspin. Hoping to build volume and achieve economies of scale, it purchased the Studebaker Corp. in 1954, but that only made things worse. Within four years, Packard was gone.

. . .

In the meantime, Mooney --- like many Packard dealers --- turned in his franchise and placed his hope and trust in the Ford Motor Company, which was launching a brand-new medium-priced car with one of the most expensive advertising programs ever planned.

The car, which debuted in September 1957, was the Edsel. And you know how that story wound up. Needless to say, Mooney wasn't selling Edsels for very long.

Happily for Mooney and his employees, by the early 1960s he'd taken a franchise for the Volkswagen Beetle, which went onto become the hottest-selling imported car that the United States had ever seen.

Mooney Volkswagen eventually moved to Route 48 in White Oak in the building currently used by Bob Massie Toyota.

. . .

Anyway, Randy's question --- and the recent Pittsburgh Auto Show --- left me wondering where the city's car dealers were located in the years following World War II. It turns out that McKeesport, like many other American cities, had a very vital "automobile row" Downtown in the 1950s and '60s.

Urban car dealerships across the United States were in eclipse by the 1970s, but at one time it would have been possible to see practically every make and model of new car within a few square blocks of Walnut Street.

I thought it was interesting enough to add a new article to Tube City Online's History Section.

It's called "Remembering McKeesport's Auto Row."

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