Lost Franklin Dealership – Ralph Hamlin, Los Angeles

Ralph Hamlin was a rather active fellow. He claimed to have owned the first motorcycle west of the Rockies, apparently started a bicycle shop, participated in many automobile races and even participated in the committee that organized the early Los Angeles Motor Shows. He also, starting in about 1905, became the distributor for Franklins in Southern California, later taking on Selden trucks and Scripps-Booth automobiles in his L.A. dealership.

Hamlin did figure significantly in one chapter of Franklin history, according to Georgano: In the mid-1920s, he led a group of Franklin dealers in revolt against the company, demanding a freshly an uncontroversially styled car to sell. Thus the resignation of John Wilkinson, Franklin’s chief engineer, and the adoption of the deCausse hood instead of the Renault-style hood.

Possibly for that reason, or possibly just because he had a beautiful dealership, the H.H. Franklin Club, when presented with the opportunity to create an entirely new Franklin museum at Hickory Corners, chose to model their standalone building after Hamlin’s dealership, as depicted above.

But where exactly was it? A little sleuthing turns up an address for Hamlin’s Selden distributorship at 1040-1044 South Flower Street (Live maps view). If that is indeed the location of his showroom, then nothing of it remains, replaced, apparently, by apartments. But, thanks to the Franklin club, you’ll be able to see it again, starting in Spring 2010.

As a bonus, while researching this post, we came across an old penny postcard of the Franklin factory in Syracuse. It wasn’t on David TA’s map of automobile factories, so of course that means I have to go searching for its exact location. From one of the histories on the Franklin club’s website, we see that the first of the company’s 18 buildings was erected in 1903 on the corner of West Marcellus and South Geddes streets, which is now Fowler High School, an account that agrees with Georgano, which stated that the factory (after becoming Air Cooled Motors and after being sold to the Poles) was demolished in the early 1970s to make way for a high school.