This interesting article was written by Bob Wheeler for the historical edition of The Crittenden Press in December 1972.
The death-rattle of the big-city dreams of our community developed by 1917. The morbid rattle was the creaking of the old "tin lizzies" intensified by the drum-rolls of World War I.
The evolution of the automobile from a carnival-like ride in 1911-12 to a common and effective means of transportation to near-by cities and shopping centers by 1917 meant the beginning of the end for Marion's economic stability for many local merchants, who were dependent upon the near-isolation of Marion and Crittenden County in keeping an almost exclusive control of local trade.
First to fall to the auto-invasion were Marion's two large livery stables, as might be expected. George Foster, who, under the firm name of Foster & Son, ran the old Wallingford stable on East Bellville Street (now the Wheeler parking lot) gave up early, and joined the enemy in the new Ford agency of Gabe Abell's. The Guess & Ordway Livery Stable on the North Main Street site of Johnson Electric Co. had to sell out at auction and the old frame building was soon torn down.
The auto-invasion seems to bring about one advancement that had long been needed in the city of Marion - the grading, smoothing, graveling, oiling and preparation for pavement of the major streets, which by 1913 were curbed but still dirt.
On top of this local problem, the bull Moose split in the Republican Party allowed a visionary, Woodrow Wilson, to sneak into the White House. Since he was only the second President they had elected since 1856, the National Democratic Party desperately adopted his visions. Wilson desired the United States to become the economic "big brother" to the world. This policy not only took away the Protective Tariff, a system under which small American cities' industries had thrived, it commenced the unnecessary U. W. involvement in the First World War.
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