Editorâs note: This is the 386th in a series of articles recalling vanished Huntington scenes.
UNTINGTON â For decades, from roughly the 1920s through the 1960s, local folks shopping for a new car knew exactly where to go â a stretch of downtown 4th Avenue between 4th Street and 7th Street. Known as âAutomobile Row,â the three-block stretch of street was home to a dozen or so automobile dealers.
Among them, at 611 4th Ave., was the Metropolitan Buick Co., owned by J.B. Rich.
A Texas native, Hez G. Ward graduated from Cornell University with a degree in business administration and hotel management. When he graduated he landed a job as a mail clerk at the Netherland-Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati, rapidly advancing to assistant manager of the hotelâs front office. Later he was assistant zone manager for the Cincinnati regional office of the Chevrolet Division of General Motors.