YorksPast

Most people remember Conrad’s Delicatessen at the northeast corner of South Queen Street and Springdale Avenue. However the building housing their deli began as Stoppard’s Garage, a community edifice that had a notable impact on the Springdale neighborhood.

Readers are asked to share photos of Stoppard’s Garage or Conrad’s Delicatessen. Illustrations from 1922, 1928, 1932, 1948, 1963, and 1998 are use to tell the story of these businesses.

Luther Stoppard learns the upholstery trade

Luther L. Stoppard (1898-1979) grew up on a farm in Chanceford Township, located close to the border with Lower Windsor Township. Luther learned the automobile upholstering trade during three years in his late teens, when he was an upholsterer in York for the Pullman Automobile Company. These were the years 1915, 1916, and 1917; when 4,136, 2,736 and 1,213 Pullman automobiles were annually produced respectively.

The Stoppard farm was close enough to the rural Bittersville Trolley station such that Luther could have walked there for trolley transportation to and from the Pullman factory in York. He lost that job when Pullman production ceased after the 1917 models and was soon back farming after the death of his father in 1918.

Luther Stoppard married Ruth Knisley in 1919. They purchased a home at 937 South Queen Street in Spring Garden Township in 1920. That purchase was because Luther got upholstery work in York from Edward Law at his Empire Garage, located at 25 North Franklin Street. In December 1920, Edward Law sold that business to Luther Stoppard.

First phase of Stoppard’s Garage (1922-1931)

Luther Stoppard purchased a large empty lot at the northeast corner of South Queen Street and Springdale Avenue on June 3, 1922. It was in the same block where his home was located. By the end of June, construction commenced on a 40-feet by 60-feet one-story concrete block garage. Per the following ad, Stoppard’s Garage opened three months later.

The service station gasoline pumps sat along the South Queen Street front of the garage. The back wall of the garage sat against Weaver Avenue. The specialty of the garage, which could hold 10-cars, was automobile upholstering and repairing tops. At that time most car tops were fabric stretched over a metal or wood frame.

In 1928, Stoppard’s Garages became the gathering place for Springdale neighborhood residents that proposed leaving Spring Garden Township for better services provided by being annexed into York City. The court considered overwhelming support for that action in petitions coming from those meetings and by decree of Judge Ray P. Sherwood on December 24, 1928, the Springdale section of Spring Garden Township was annexed into the City of York as the newly established 15th Ward.

Stoppard’s Garage was established as the polling place for the 15th Ward, from its 1928 inception. It remained the place where Springdale residents voted until April 1960, when Luther Stoppard ceased his business activities in the building.

Final phase of Stoppard’s Garage (1932-1960)

The Stoppard Garage, depicted in the following 1932 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, shows results of remodeling started in 1931 and completed in 1932. The blue area, at right side, is the original single-story cinder-block garage, with 13-foot ceilings. The red area is new brick second floor residential quarters, constructed above the front part of the original garage. Luther Stoppard and family were the initial occupants of the second floor residence. The yellow wood-frame area, at left side, contained a barbershop and a grocery store next to the service station office. The gasoline pumps were moved to the Springdale Avenue side of the garage.

Allen Day and Edwin Seitz were a few of the early barbers doing business in Stoppard’s Garage. M&H Pure Food Store was the grocery store located in another section of the garage. So by 1932, Springdale had what amounted to present day convenience stores at gasoline stations.

During WWII, material shortages closed most auto upholstery businesses. And gasoline rationing caused some service stations to close, which is why the gasoline pumps were removed at Stoppard’s Garage by 1944. Luther Stoppard worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Highways during most of the war years, managing repair of their equipment and vehicles.

Luther Stoppard had a hobby that kept him occupied, he was among a group of enthusiasts in York County with sizeable watch and clock collections. In October 1943 several of them met with other such watch and clock collectors in Philadelphia. That gathering was the beginning of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors. A year later, they met at the Engineers Club in Philadelphia for the first meeting of the association’s council and to formally draw up by-laws for the NAWCC. That association is now headquartered in nearby Columbia, Lancaster County; with their Museum at 514 Poplar Street.

Luther Stoppard was an organizer the York Chapter NAWCC on November 6, 1948. It was the seventh chapter of the association with members from South Central Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland. Most of the feature press coverage about Luther Stoppard is associated with his clock collecting.

The caption of the following photo from one of the quarterly meetings of the York Chapter NAWCC in 1949 included: Willis R. Michael, president of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, points to his Hahn astronomical machine. Also in the photo are: Luther Stoppard (black suit), president of the York Chapter NAWCC, and Ernest Cramer, past president of the Philadelphia Chapter NAWCC. They were among 70 members and guests at quarterly meetings of the York Chapter on October 14 at the Willis Michael home, York RD 1, containing some 400 clocks and 200 watches.

During WWII no new cars were produced and most auto upholstery businesses closed due to material shortages. As a result, at wars end, upholstery repairs on cars were thriving businesses for years. Luther L. Stoppard, Jr. joined his father in the Stoppard’s Garage business in 1948. He had served in the Eighth Air Force in Britain during WWII, which is where he met his bride Irene Nicholson.

Business must have been good. Luther L. Stoppard, Sr. and Jr. built impressive Farquhar Estates houses in 1952 and 1955 respectively. These neighboring houses, along Summit Drive, are among the nicest in the neighborhood. They each sit on one-acre plots.

Luther Stoppard, Sr. retired from the business in 1959. Sadly the health of Luther Stoppard Jr. began rapidly deteriorating in 1960, he suffered the final months of his life until his death in 1961, at the age of 40. In April 1960, Luther Stoppard, Jr. ceased his business activities in Stoppard’s Garage, after which the building provided short-term rentals to various concerns for two years before the building and surrounding property were sold by Luther Stoppard, Sr. to Joseph and Esther Conrad on March 23, 1962.

After Luther Stoppard’s wife Ruth died in 1964, he purchased a place in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. It was near the Little Switzerland Lodge were they had vacationed. It was also midway between his home in York and that of his daughter Ruth and granddaughter Betsy in Winter Park, Florida.

Luther Stoppard kept his home in Farquhar Estates three more years before selling all remaining property in York. He had met the widow Sudie English in Spruce Pine and they married. Room was made for Stoppard’s clock collection and his family heirlooms. Luther Stoppard died in 1979 after a brief illness and is buried in Spruce Pine, NC. His gravestone has a grandfather clock chiseled into it.

Conrad’s Delicatessen in Springdale (1963-1997)

Conrad’s Delicatessen opened on the corner of South Queen Street and Springdale Avenue at Noon on Monday July 1, 1963. Joe and Esther Conrad had spent 15-months renovating the first floor of Stoppard’s Garage into a first-class deli. The wood-framed front rooms were bricked-up to match the brickwork on the remainder of the building. Also part of the cinder-block section of the garage, that was right up against Weaver Avenue, was removed.

Conrad’s business went back to Joe Conrad’s patents, William and Fannie Conrad. They began the business in 1921 by selling specialty items from a wagon pulled through York’s neighborhoods. The most popular items were: deviled crab, pickled tripe, pickled tongue, pepper slaw, and potato salad. The items progressed to being sold in York’s bars and in stands at Central, City, Farmers and Eastern Markets. When son Joe Conrad returned from WWII Army service in Europe, he joined the business at a time when the items were still prepared in the Conrad home. In 1947, Joe and Esther Conrad were married.

In the early 1950s, the Conrad business rented space in a building on Hartley Street in York as the amount of product sold weekly continued to grow. In the new space, they prepared 900 pounds of pickled tripe every Monday and 300 pickled tongues on Wednesday. As the customer base grew, Conrad’s distributed an ever-wider range of hams, cheeses and other goods. Such was the case as Joe and Esther Conrad opened their popular store at the corner of South Queen Street and Springdale Avenue in 1963.

Joe and Esther Conrad mixed business with the pleasure of doing business as they lived above and operated their well-liked deli at 951 South Queen Street. The family-owned business was sold to an outside investor in October 1988, along with the Conrad’s Delicatessen business name. Unfortunately the investor failed to meet his obligations, forcing the business into bankruptcy in 1997. Several other businesses have since owned the building, with the York Hospital Federal Credit Union doing so immediately following Conrad’s.

Click on this LINK for a yorkblog.com Full View of the photos and illustrations in this post.

Links to related posts include:

McCall’s Deli evolved into the North Pole Drive-In

Mystery woman in the York built Pullman Coupe

Racing to the Cherry Top on Queen Street

Amber Light drive-in on Queen Street