Karl Breckinridge’s column from the Reno Gazette Journal
\ndiscusses – “Of Fords and Ravioli”:<\/p>\n
An observation here last Sunday brought a half-a-dozen e-mails \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we noted downtown construction had exposed a sign on the back wall of Reno Furniture\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s store on Virginia Street, a sign in an alley that had been obscured for many years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c first by Ford dealer Richardson-Lovelock, then by a temporary building that was recently razed.<\/p>\n
The e-mail comments fell in two directions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c when was the sign ever visible from any thoroughfare? And, obviously from old-timers: Wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Reno\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ford dealer once in the Reno Furniture building? One-by-one we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll reconstruct that central downtown block, and here I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m playing with relatively ancient phone books, Polk City Directories and Sanborn Fire maps, which tend to differ from each other by a year or two. (There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the reasons that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t venture back prior to World War II often in these pages\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6)<\/p>\n
There are tracks toward a Ford dealership even before 1917 but fairly solid records of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Calavada Ford\u00e2\u20ac\u009d operating in Reno, downtown in the 400 block of North Virginia Street. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Calavada\u00e2\u20ac\u009d twice in the past and twice you read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cal-Vada.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The former sold Fords, the latter Jeeps.) Calavada Ford operated in a building, brick, per the Sanborn map, that was a doorway south of Reno Furniture\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s location at 432 N. Virginia. That dealership later moved to the corner of East Fourth and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153University\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Street, the present Center Street\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prewar name. In 1938 it was acquired by Richardson and Lovelock, and one of my old columns further describes those two fine guys. Reno Furniture\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alley sign that I wrote of was visible from 1940 until the dealership was significantly enlarged to the north, obscuring the sign (the block had been occupied by some stately single-family homes until 1955.) Rounding out the thought, Fred Bartlett bought the dealership in 1966, and Forest Lovelock joined veteran Reno auto dealer Pio Mastering.<\/p>\n
The Reno Furniture building at 432 N. Virginia Street originally housed Reno Grocery, a wholesale grocer to the trade \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that building tracking to 1923 on a Sanborn map.<\/p>\n
Shifting gears slightly, I’ll scribe that while following a Citifare bus earlier this week, I’ll noted a placard \u00e2\u20ac\u015380 years of Inez\u00e2\u20ac\u009d over second line \u00e2\u20ac\u015370 years of the Halfway Club\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with a photo of Mama herself alongside.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This demands to be chronicled,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I thought to myself and turned east on Highway 40 toward the Halfway Club to investigate further. Sources inside that legendary lair spun the tale of a beautiful bundle of joy arriving in St. Mary\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on Feb. 11th of 1927, being named Inez by her parents John and Elvira Casale and being taken home to the present Halfway Club building where she would live during her childhood. It was then indeed halfway between Reno and Sparks, a fur\u00c2\u00a0 piece from either, as it would remain until well into the 1950s.<\/p>\n
The Casales would open an Italian deli specializing in raviolis in 1935, and in 1937 reopen as a restaurant where the by-then world-famous raviolis were served to travelers on the Lincoln Highway. Ines married Steamboat Stempeck in 1946 and continued making the best raviolis in the world (and now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably hear from Bruno Selmi in Gerlach. Well, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both damn good!)<\/p>\n
Inez at 80 remains the popular grande dame of the local social and culinary landscape, still embracing the Halfway Club\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s corporate mantra, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If Mama ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happy, ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t nobody happy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I know the Sunday readers join me in sending her our best. Have a good week; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s OK to scream if you hear \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Danny Boy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d one more time, and God bless America.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Karl’s web page is at:\u00c2\u00a0 http:\/\/www.karlbreckenridge.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n