This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in Images for East Bernard Express, January 19, 2023.
Remembering my hometown of Dime Box in the 1930s and 1940s, I must conclude that the most popular “business places” for men in town were beer joints, filling stations, the blacksmith shop, and the auto repair shop (though there wasn’t one until later), — but not necessarily in that order.
It was a toss-up between a couple filling stations and the blacksmith shop as popular hangouts for men. It was in the evenings, after the day was done, that men, along with their wives and children, would relax in the beer joints, playing dominoes, drinking beer and soda water, and eating pickled boiled eggs and/or pretzels.
During the day, men would stop by their favorite filling station and drink coffee with the owner and other friends. The filling station was more popular in the 1940s than in the 1930s, because not too many folks owned cars in the 1930s, many still coming to town on horseback, or via horse and buggy, or work horse pulling a flatbed wagon.
So, because of that, the blacksmith shop had an edge on the filling stations. In a farming community like this, the blacksmith shop was a frequent destination for farmers, who had to have farm equipment repaired, such as plow blades straightened, iron brackets replaced on wooden wagons, wagon wheels and axles straightened out. It was the most vital business place, and there was always a cup of coffee for the customer while he waited.
I remember going to the blacksmith shop with my father many times, and being totally fascinated watching the smithy bend white hot iron and reshaping it, not to mention watching one of the smithy’s sons, in welding helmet, welding together huge pieces of metal. This was more exciting to watch than going to a ball game.
Far fewer blacksmith shops exist today, and they are quite different from those of my childhood. The blacksmith shops of my childhood would heat pieces of wrought iron or steel in a forge, so that the metal was soft enough to be shaped, and then the “fun” would begin. The forge in which the metal was heated was fueled by coal in the early days, later by propane.
In today’s world, the blacksmith shops still existing are very different and serve a different clientele from those of yesteryear. Today, customers are not so much farmers anymore, but industries with different needs than farmers had. Also, “blacksmith-artists” are growing in number (about 4,000 today), and they use the old blacksmithing skills to create metal sculpture, not something a farmer would have done. Metal sculptures are beautiful and very popular these days.
By the 1960s, the number of “old school” blacksmith shops had greatly decreased. Old shops were closing down, and few new ones were opening. Today, I’m guessing that farmers order new parts for their tractors and other farm equipment from tractor companies rather than have a blacksmith shop repair or reshape the part.
When my grandfather had a bathtub put in his house, he had the blacksmith make one out of the same metal used in making wash tubs. Grandpa himself designed the bathtub, and it looked a great deal like a horse trough.
Those were the good old days when blacksmith shops were not only one of the most popular hangouts in town, but also the most vital business.
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Ray Spitzenberger is a retired Wharton County Junior College teacher, a retired Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.