ATLANTA CAR NEWS
Chattanooga museum highlights history, role of tow trucks, recovery vehiclesThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/19/08
CHATTANOOGA — If your ideal destination for a day trip includes things old and automotive, then it won't take much to get you hooked on the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum.
Located on Broad Street in Chattanooga, the towing museum is on the main road to two iconic attractions — Rock City and Ruby Falls — a setting that allows it to draw thousands of visitors, most of whom come having little interest in the towing industry.
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| A truck billed as the world's fastest wrecker at the museum in Chattanooga credit- International Towing and Recovery Museum | ||
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| A military truck at the museum in Chattanooga credit- International Towing and Recovery Museum. | ||
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Built to house a supermarket, the 16,000-square-foot facility has been transformed into a shrine to the unsung heroes of the highways — those tow truck operators and their machines that rescue the stranded. Inside are about 20 restored tow trucks, representing every decade from the early 1900s to the late 1970s. Towing aside, many find the trucks themselves well worth the price of admission.
It's fitting that the facility is in Chattanooga, a city that is to towing what Detroit is to automobiles. The first manufactured wreckers were built in the Tennessee city by the late Ernest Holmes. Legend has it that sometime in 1916, Holmes, frustrated by the time it took him to retrieve a car that had run off into Chickamauga Creek, fashioned his first wrecker and mounted it in place of the back seat of a Cadillac car.
Holmes wreckers were the industry standard bearer for decades. Now another company, Miller Industries in nearby Ooltewah, is the world's largest manufacturer of towing and recovery equipment.
But it's the old wreckers that the crowds come to see and enjoy. Surprisingly, only about 10 percent of the 10,000 visitors each year are directly involved in towing, according to museum director Cheryl Mish.
Kevin Berg from Baltimore, a recent visitor, is part of that 10 percent, as he works for a body shop and towing company. Even so, as he toured the facility with his family, he saw sights he never expected.
"It's different, something unusual that obviously we've never seen before," he said. "To be honest with you, I didn't realize there were so many old restored tow trucks. Usually people are looking for something new and improved."
Old and improvised might be a better description for some of the older exhibits.
Just inside the door is a wrecker built onto the chassis of what once was a luxurious, sparkling white 1929 Packard 640 limousine. Another is built onto a 1913 Locomobile. A 1929 Chrysler five-window coupe and a Fargo truck were combined to carry a Weaver hoisting mechanism, creating a wrecker that worked so well that it was used until 1971 by a Chrysler Plymouth dealership in Oak Park, Ill.
There are some massive machines, including a 70-ton unit mounted on a 1961 Autocar tractor and a 1957 GMC bubble-nose truck that hauled Pabst beer before being converted into a towing machine.
A military version of a heavy wrecker is a World War II veteran. The 1943 Diamond T truck, equipped with a Holmes wrecker boom, served in the Red Ball Express that carried supplies to the front as Gen. George Patton's Army drove toward Germany after the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
Alongside the restored trucks are thousands of towing-related toys, antique lubricating and maintenance equipment and other towing memorabilia. There also is a gift shop and theater.
There is a Hall of Fame for those who have distinguished themselves in the towing industry, and out front is a Wall of the Fallen, where tow truck drivers killed in the line of duty are memorialized.
Grace Hawkins of Stone Mountain is among those enshrined in the Hall of Fame. She earned that honor largely because of the stance she takes in her writings for trade publications.
"I've always been an advocate for individual towers as opposed to the large consolidators ... which have really acted to detriment of the industry over many years and to the motoring public too," she said.
Hawkins also played a role in the formation of the museum, as did her late father, John Hawkins II, who conceived the idea of a towing museum and pushed hard for it even as others wrote it off as a ridiculous idea.
Now the museum continues to grow, has paid for its building and is financially secure thanks to admission revenue, dues and donations. That, and the fact that it appeals to such a diverse group of visitors make early organizers like Hawkins quite proud of what they've built.
"Everybody loves trucks and antiques," Hawkins said. "If you're looking for something to do, it's a good family place, a great destination."
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