PHOTO OF THE DAY: MONDAY FLASHBACK
This photo was featured in Heritage Hall Museum & Archives’ weekly Monday Facebook post looking back on an image from the Freeman community. The post included the following explanation:
For two decades, a used car dealership was located on the north side of 6th Street. The building today is the home of Printed Impressions. Charlie Fliginger built it in the fall of 1971 and the following year Fliginger opened an auto body shop there.
The retired farmer who had moved to Freeman several years earlier, Fliginger named the business Willow Inn. The name, he wrote in a history of his business in 1979, came “because of a beautiful weeping willow, tall and wide, near to the front of the lot. It seemed to say, ‘come let us reason together in the shade of this tree.’ It would be a wonderful place for old men to come and solve the great problems of life.”
Several years after he opened, Fliginger saw the growing potential of smaller, economy cars and decided to go into the import car and car parts business. He joined the Omaha Insurance Pool, from which he could buy repossessed stolen or damaged cars. He repaired what needed to be repaired and sold them.
“Our trade territory has grown a long way into Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota, he wrote in 1979, especially in the parts department. His venture grew, although he said “it is not our intention to become big and dominating … our hope is to stay small and humble.”
The business continued into the mid-90s, when he retired at the age of 90. He died in July 1999 at the age of 95.The photo is from Heritage Hall & Archives and the information is taken primarily from Freeman Facts, Freeman Fiction,” published in 1979 as part of Freeman’s centennial observance. It’s an important resource in our achives, which are open to the public for research during our regular hours – weekday afternoons from noon to 4 October through April.
