History Anyone Else Hang Out in Junk Yards as a Kid?

My grandfather owned one when I was growing up in the 50's. I spent many, many hours crawling through the old cars and watching the teenagers come to get parts to "fix up" their cars. One particular story stuck in my mind from that time. There was one kid about 16 or 17 years old that had a 49 Ford with a flathead that he was always trying to make faster or just keep running. He would come on Saturdays and cover the whole yard. Oh, almost forgot, there was no fence around it. Anyway, this kid would stay for hours but seldom buy anything. I asked about that and Granddaddy said "Oh he comes back after dark and gets a part or two if he really needs it. I don't mind cause they are good people, just ain't got no money". The kid would help him around the yard if he needed it. Yeah, times have changed but the die was cast for me at an early age.

BTW. He and my Dad told me stories that would make you cry about scouring the hills for 20's, 30's, and 40's cars to crush and send to scrapper. First trip was to cut (torched) the running gear out. Next trip (months or years later), they cut the frames out. As the price of steel went up, they sometimes returned for the sheet metal. That is one reason you find old cars in fields, wood lots, etc in varying stages of being dismantled.

 

Yep loved them. I went twice on any given day: 1st to find out where the part was that I needed and then at night with the tools...

 

yes sir, when your in highschool and working 2 jobs to save up for more school every dime counted , my old guy was 2 miles from my house and I was there at least once every 2 weeks , for a while I was getting parts for free as it was a super hot summer and he didn't want to pull parts out in the sun , so he asked if I could get them for him as he knew I used the right tools and not a hammer or pair of pliers like most did . I had a crash cart I made for my tools and cooler to get my parts as the vw section was at the back of the yard , and every now and then he would flip me the keys to the yard bug ( bent in half pick up truck ) with the torches so I could get some of his stuff out too . remember one summer there was a fire , I thought I started it , but he said due to the location of it it had to be a bunch of guys who smoked that were looking for parts in that section . they finally closed that place up in 2000 and had to scrape the layer of earth off and clean it . its now a park .

 

I have two stories not long ,first one was
we have a ranch that backed up too a old junk yard with cars this was in the 80's we would jump over the fence and sit In all the cars and then pull all the car keys from the cars ignitions I had a key chain with a hundred keys on it yea punk kid I know.

Next was early 90's building my first classic car a 63 impala SS
bought it for 2,500 wanted too lower it and went too an old car lot in Texas
And pulled parts and springs from old cars so we could heat them too lower the car best day I had with my pals.

 

When I was a kid, there were a couple of good ones around Rockmart and Aragon GA--Hugh Spinks' place, Mack Moates, and Beed Carroll's. Ott Chambers' place out on Cedartown Highway at Fish Creek. Lots of good old stuff back in the '60s and early '70s. Best one was up near Dalton in the Beaverdale community, Arthur Richmond's place. Arthur was a unique individual. If he didn't like you, it didn't matter how much money you had to offer him for what he wanted; if he liked you, he was as likely as not to give it to you. More than a few parts on the '38 Ford pickup came from out at Arthur's. Rarest vehicle out at Arthur's was a '28 Chrysler rumble seat roadster that had a door that opened in the left quarter panel to stash a set of golf clubs. Arthur had some '38, '39, and '40 Lincoln Zephyrs that had been driven to where they were sitting. He had a bunch of cars that he had bought with low miles and minor collision damage with the intention of fixing them and selling them and just never got around to them. I remember a '55 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan, about 20,000 miles on it, sat there until the floors rusted out and a tree fell on it. There was a '37 Hudson Terraplane next to the '55 Ford. There was a '54 Chevy with 8.000 miles and a '64 Chevelle convertible with 11,000 miles that needed a quarter panel when it was parked. The steering box out of that Chevelle is in my truck. Arthur did mechanic work until he was about 90.

 

Absolutely enjoyed all the junk yard stories. I, too perused the yards that would let me in. Never destroyed anything, just dreamed about building a rod from what I found in the yard. In the mid 60's most of the yards started baling the old iron....hated to see it done, but that was business. Found a cherry '37 Chevy coupe that was rust free (Kansas plates), which was unusual as this was in Iowa, and everything was rusty. I tried to buy it, but as the title had been "turned in" as salvage, at the time it was almost impossible to get it titled. The owner tried to help me, but it just wasn't feasible. Still think about that old '37.

Thanks for the stories guys....waiting for more.

 

My dad grew up in one, I grew up in one, I work there every week day, take my daughter on Fridays. I don't let her walk amongst the cars yet because she just turned three.


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Yup, as a kid and into my teens. Garys Auto Wrecking, and Stave Falls Auto Wrecking. Stave Falls was by far the coolest. Those two names should conjure up some memories for anyone that grew up in Haney...

 

I hang out here almost once a week.
I started going when I was about 20, due to the yard mechanic.
He fixed anything he touched, perfectly.
I dropped off for a few years after he left, but for the last six years, I've become a regular, and sometimes work for the owner, when my regular work is quite.
Here's a pic from this afternoon.

 

My "parts" man, Tommy DiPiro............. Quote;

"This is a JUNK yard! Anyone calls it a "salvage yard", I'll throw 'em the hell out!"

Opened by his Dad, Tony- used to have cars stacked 4 high. EXCELLANT!

 

Did not hang out there, visited often, Brought up some good memories, 60's Milwaukee Wi. Several junk yards, most were pick part yourself, pay as you leave, bought engines, trans, rear ends, axels, tires at $5/ to put on $10/ chrome reverse wheels, owners were helpful, knowledgeable, and good to us kids, different times, good times, we babyboomers have lived in the best of times for car crazy's, IMO.

 

A friend of mine who sponsored my late model stock car back in the 70"s owned a salvage yard. We used to get almost all our cars parts there. We cut up a 62 Nova, 66 GTO and a 68 Chevelle just to name a few. Wish I had these back today

 

I remember back when I was in high school, every now and again BC Auto in Zion, IL would have a 'All you can push pull or drag out for $20. They had held it on Saturday mornings for a couple hours. I only made it there once for it, and it was an absolute zoo. It was kind of like Black Friday at the junk yard. Guys lined up hours before it opened. As soon as the gates opened, everyone clamored for hoods and decklids to use as sleds. Past that, it was just a two hour thrash trying to fight for the parts everyone was trying to get. I remember seeing one guy trying to pull a motor from 70's Camaro as two other guys were stripping it of it's parts. Those were the days...

 

In central Jersey there was an epic yard called Kober's on Montana Mountain, near Phillipsburg. As you drove up and around the mountain all you could see was the glistening of a million windshields. That place had everything , even a WW II halftrack. Sometime in the'90's the entire yard was cleared. Bummer... I can't believe how a place that big could be cleared. Lotsa great memories & parts.

 

A-1 Auto Wrecking in Woodinville, WA. Big sign in the office: Engines $10, Cars $25--this was the late '60s/early '70s. Dad would let me loose while he pulled parts; I was probably eight. One time I found a rusted out WWII Willys bomb truck. I begged dad to buy it--only $25! He was having none of it.

Still, we got several vehicles there over the years: '48 Chev convertible, '51 Chev 3600, '62 Corvair convertible. $25 each. Years later the Corvair became mine. The yard is gone now, but I always smile when I drive by.

 

There was one in Tulsa at 36th St. North and Harvard. The guy would let me wander around to my heart's content. They crushed it all when the state decided to run Hwy 75 right through the middle of it.

 

Couple junk yards in the town I grew up in- Cheboygan, MI- Klings and Lyons- my dad and I would go to Lyons often- he bought and fixed up several cars per year- I was his helper- so when I started driving I continued and built a couple cars using junk yard parts- while in college in Kalamazoo, MI I worked at Douglas Auto Parts part time- behind was their junk yard- those were the days a person could walk in with a tool box and take off your own parts-

 

My uncle had the junk yard in a town just south of Kansas City. I loved to go through the yard, but we moved to the city when I was nine years old and stopped having anything to do with him because he was a pretty horrible person. I really was disappointed that I didn't have that access during my teens and twenties, but once I understood how bad a person he was, the tradeoff was for the best. Still, it would have been great having a junk yard within walking distance (a quarter mile) of home.

 

define junk yard.

 

It is funny that this thread comes up. My Mother asked me a couple of weeks ago if I remember getting an A+ on a college English paper. She tells me that she still has it
stashed away. I do remember that paper well. It was about a junkyard. The reason that I wrote that paper was because I was scavenging parts at a local junk yard when I was supposed to be writing that paper. It was a yard that I went to often, and I figured that I'd kill Two birds with One stone. The professor was so impressed with the paper that he had me read it aloud to the class. After class he asked me to stay after class to discuss the paper. He said in his many years of teaching, it was very rare that he read such a detailed description as the paper had included. I used to go to several junk yards and look around all afternoon; studying how cars were built. I told my professor that it was all about Passion. To this day, I take every chance get t0 "hand out" in junk yards and scavenge parts. I just found out about a really interesting yard that I plan on checking out this Spring in Pennsylvania.

VR&C.

 

My local junkyard shared a cyclone fence with the drive-in movie theater next door. So in addition to the usual daytime activities we would sneak in at night, drag some car seats over to the fence, get someone inside the drive-in to turn up the speakers nearby, do some underage beer drinking and watch the movies. Man that was living!

 

At age 12 in 1958, I went to the local junkyard with $5. The 2 partners had torches out, cutting up junk. I told them I was looking for a junk engine just to take apart to see what makes them run. One partner turned to the other and said "Finally, a man that knows what he wants".

 

My "fort" was a flipped over 40's Mack 5 ton dump truck, kept my fishing gear there too. And next to it was "8 Ball", a white 37 Chevy jalopy race car. I sat in old "8 Ball" a lot....

 

Well, looks like I wasn't the only "weird" kid. Thanks for all the replies, good reading.
GV

 

Coolest junkyard, perhaps ever, was Mahalchik's outside of Mt. Holly, NJ. Long story (http://www.spacesarchives.org/explore/collection/environment/the-fabulous-fifty-acres/) the man lived in a teepee, the road frontage was covered with anti-government signs and the yard was full of 'teens and 20 cars, blimp gondolas, steam engines, military vehicles, tanks, and tons of wing tanks. It was too far to bike, I could never convince my dad to take me before I drove and then sports and school kind of occupied my high school years. By the time I was back in town, the yard was gone.

 

i had a couple--the local one was "murphy's junkyard," which now is a park in an upscale st. louis county neighborhood. that's the one that had a 2-story-high pile of flatheads for $10 your choice. another was on st. charles rock road at the missouri river. that one is still there. a bunch of us were sea scouts and would stop there and explore on the way to the marina near the alton dam...

 

My dad had a junk yard from '48 till '70 and man what some stories and stuff...He told me of burning out the yard (which is what they did early on pre-crushers) in about 1950 and 32 Ford coupes and a roadster pickup, 40 Fords, etc where among the bunch! In about '66 had the crushers come in and my best memory was a '57 Ford retractable hard top that only needed a front cap...I also remember some words used by customers to buy parts....shockers, muffins, torque pole and my favorite: point holder (which is a distributor)!! Wish I could go back and scour that yard today.....Joe

 

Not much around here for old stuff anymore, but I'll still go to the free entry yard to just wander around now and then. If I need stuff Ill pay to get in the other yards.
As a kid I spent a lot of time in the local yard, dad would do stuff to help them on the weekends for cash or parts. I played in the old junkers during that time. Even got to be "saved" from some cars as the local F.D. was there one day learning how to use this new invention, they called it the "jaws of life" I think it took off and became popular.

 

As a kid I would go to the local junk yard on a regular basis with my older brother. He is 8 years older than me and was always looking to pull a fast one. I remember when he was watching me as a kid probable 9 or 10 yrs old. He had me put on baggy cloths and when we went into the junkyard with our tool boxes to unbolt the parts he needed for one of his many car projects, my tool box went in empty. He had me act like it was heavy and when we left the junkyard it was heavy with goodies. The junkyard guy was pretty savy and probable knew what we were doing. I went to that junkyard for 25 or 30 yrs until the guy died. He always treated me fair and as an adult I always paid for my stuff.
He had some cool stuff including a 65 vette Hardtop Bigblock sitting in a barn that he would not sell, a 1941 ford woody with the wood totally rotted away. Wonder what happened to that. I bought a 54 porche wreck one time and he let me store it there and strip the car. None of the parts ever disappeared and he made sure nobody touched it. I probable gave him a dozen cars for scrap over the years. No doubt in my mind that place and Bob the owner taught me a lot about vintage cars and gave me the love for old cars that I have. I would stop in about once a week or so to see what he had. Always something cool. The cars are all gone now and it is just a big sand pit, every time I drive down that road I think fondly about it and Bob Bakers (Bakers Auto parts).