Weld County Garage
By Ryan Green, Internet Sales Manager
In 1901 Donald R. McArthur established Weld County Garage selling buggies and shoeing horses for the then dirt roads of Greeley Colorado. In 1908 Weld County Garage entered the car business and became the first Buick dealership west of the Mississippi selling Buick’s most popular vehicle the Model 10. This was actually before General Motors existed. General Motors (GM) was founded on September 16, 1908 as a holding company for Buick, and on that date Weld County Garage became a GM dealer. In 1908 GM purchased the Reliance Motor Truck Company and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company. These two were merged to create GMC Trucks in 1912 and Weld County Garage was in the truck business. Weld County Garage began carrying Pontiac vehicles in 1926 when Pontiac became the new name for the GM owned Oakland Motor Car Company.
Weld County Garage hasn’t always just been in the car business. Appliances were sold in the large showroom in the same building as the Buick Pontiac and GMC sales on 8th Avenue and
10th Street in Greeley Colorado. This showroom later became the large indoor showroom for Buicks and Pontiacs that allowed Weld County Garage customers to shop for their new vehicle in the warmth of the indoors during the cold Colorado winters. Throughout the years Weld County Garage has sold many forms of transportation and entertainment including trailers, boats, jet skis, four wheelers and motorcycles. The building on 8th and 10th was remodeled and expanded upon several times to house Weld County Garage’s service department, Collision Center, and detail shop and even had two large apartments upstairs. One of these apartments was the residence of Gene Bush who has been an employee of Weld County Garage for over 50 years. To this day Gene still works at Weld County Garage making coffee and entertaining our customers and employees!
After almost 100 years and several remodels of the original building Weld County Garage was running out of space to expand, and parts of the building were literally falling apart. It was at this time after years of dreaming about “moving to the west side” that majority owners Lee and Warren Yoder started plans for a new home for Weld County Garage.
In June of 2003 Weld County Garage moved into its new home at 2699 47th Ave in Greeley, Colorado. This new location features a 60,000 square foot building set on over 12 acres of land. Weld County Garage features two large service departments; our main site on 47th Avenue and our Truck City Service Center located at 1415 1st Ave in Greeley. The Truck City Service location services all makes and models including medium duty and recreational vehicles. The new location also features a huge parts warehouse, detail shop, all the administrative offices, a large multimedia and meeting room, our vehicle financing offices, one of the largest used vehicle departments in the state of Colorado, and of course it is the home our GMC and Buick sales.
In 2009 Weld County Garage saw the end of the Pontiac brand name and extensive restructuring of GM, but Weld County Garage has continued as a strong business leader in our community and looks forward to the most successful years of it’s over 100 year history!
Did You Know?
In 1901 Donald R. McArthur established Weld County Garage selling buggies and shoeing horses for the then dirt roads of Greeley Colorado.