Art & Inspiration Salvage Yards

I just attended the funeral of the owner of Cagle Salvage , my go to salvage yard here in my home town! I started buying from Floyd Cagle back in the early seventies, when he was North of town and continued to buy from him when he moved South of town! I bought tons of stuff there over the years, haunting the place to look for semi-rare Ford parts. He was a good friend!
Then I got to thinking how salvage yards have been a part of my life! I went to my first salvage yard at about age 9 with my Dad to buy a 312 T-bird Special, ( which I still have) and I remember being amazed at all the old junk cars and parts.
Then around age 15 I bought a 430 Lincoln from Poor Boy’s salvage to put in my 55 Ford. I also hung out at Pack’ s Salvage, near my house!
I hung out at salvage yards so much, my classmates nicknamed me “ Boneyard” because I was slim and hung out at boneyards! They later shorten my nickname to “ Bones” !
I never realized how much salvage yards influenced my life till I attended my friend’s funeral!
I now am a semi-partner in a mini salvage yard!


Just some of my thoughts , today!




Bones

 

Our last vintage car salvage yard closed nearly 2 years ago. All 48 acres of cars crushed and land up for sale. Miss it.

 

sorry for your loss....

I remember my first trip to a junkyard with my dad when I was young (11?), we got a used front end for the OT car that he bought from a friend for $25 after it was wrecked.

Then after I turned 18 I got a part time job at the yard that was on our way into town on the west side of Tucson. I worked there about 3 years. It was a great education....I also got to work on the owner's 55 Tbird and 61 Vette, among other things.

There aren't many old yards left around here that still function like they used to.

 

I remember walking to town as a kid. I walked along the railroad track into town and it passed by a salvage yard. It was closed on Saturday so I would climb over the fence and look around. I clearly remember seeing a beautiful 30-31 Ford Model A coupe body with the interior siting atop another car. It had no dents or rust and I wondered why someone would put that in a junkyard. If I had been a little older and wiser I should have tried to buy it. But I doubt my dad would have allowed it, he wasn't a hot rodder.

 

Sorry to hear of your friend's passing. What will become of Cagle Salvage now that it's namesake is gone?

My area of Wisconsin has lost several old salvage yards in the last couple of years, and it remains a trend. I try to get to them and scoop up what I can for resale or for my own use, but I only have so much space and time. Once they're gone, they're gone forever.

 

He had actually closed it last year. Not sure why. He kinda kept that reason to himself, but the thousands of cars are still there , just locked up!



Bones

 

I've mentioned this before, my memories of salvage yards, (junk yards), revolved around my older
brother by 4yrs. First trip was to pull out a '37 Pontiac rear end that he paid $5 for, back in 1961.
He passed away 10yrs ago from cancer, but when I go to wrecking yards, to this day, I can close my
eyes, smell the old 90w oil, and I'm back with Mike taking apart cars. Good times for me.

 

I have an ongoing - run on text message conversation with two of my hometown buddies. We've all moved away. No more than five minutes ago the topic shifted to our two hometown junkyards and how great they were back in the early 60s. Great memories.

Lee

 

Years ago we stayed at a ranch just outside of Tucson. I didn’t have much time to check it out but there was a really nice yard in town. They had a bunch of old cars for sale sitting outside the gate that they fixed up. Rust free! Being from the East coast that in itself amazed me. The only drawback that I noticed during my stay was that car interiors weren’t so lucky. That and just about every other car on the road was white.

 

First sorry for your loss.
So now do you just salvage small cars?

 

lol! Yeah we have some of those, too! We are up to about a robust 20 cars now! Staggering,,,,,isn’t it!

It’s just two retired guys trying to make beer money and hiding it from the girls! But after we buy the beer….there isn’t much to hide!



Bones

 

All the close to me yards sold out when scrap went sky high a few years ago and closed down. Might be a few private stashes I don't know about, but not any open yards in the whole county. Sometimes you can find some stuff at the recyclers, but I don't go often enough to find anything.

Even a pull a part style operation couldn't make it in the next county over. Don't know if they couldn't get cars or just no demand for what they had, mostly 80's up stuff. I went a few times and bought several parts from them, they were never crowded.

 

Well your user name kind of informed me! LOL

 

Back when I was a teenager, there were 4 fairly large junk years, and a few smaller junk yards, and then a few guys that did car junking on the side, right here in our little town of about 26,000 (at its best time).
It probably helped a bunch that we had a dirt track on the south edge of town. Lots of cars and car parts were consumed at that track during the 5 month long season, and that track had been there since the 1940s.
I spent a lot of Saturdays visiting those junk yards, starting from the time I was able to ride my bicycle to them. They were a huge part of my life while we ran the dirt track cars, I even had 13 cars & trucks I was parting out myself. Buy, sell, trade, fix, part out, or junk cars was a side business that funded my racing habit. I knew everyone that did much of anything with cars.

As the story goes, I also watched those junk yards change ownerships, expand, or close down over the years. Most of them are gone now. there is still one functioning "official" salvage yard, and a few privet collections that are shrinking in size, or have pretty much become dormant as the guys grow older. I no longer have anything here.

It was great fun while it lasted, but is becoming just another part of our memories. The pick a part places were a useful place to pick up some parts for more modern vehicles, but they are getting pretty expensive lately, when you can buy new parts in boxes cheaper then used parts you have to pull off yourself, the writing is on the wall.

 

See below!

 

I posted that I bought my 430 at Poor Boys salvage, in about 1965 or so, to put in my ‘55 Ford! That salvage is still going, not strong, but still above ground, with the son of the guy I bought my MEL from is running it! I stop in every once in while just to visit.
You know you might be a red neck if going to the salvage yard is the highlight of your social calendar! Or maybe just a hotrodder! lol




Bones

 

I remember when I retired 22 years ago, I went to a different junk yard almost every day. We never called them salvage yards. My buddies were always asking, "what did you find today ". I got pretty tight with some of the junk yard owners, and if they had to leave, or close for lunch, they would just lock the gate with me still inside nosing around. I always had them look in my truck when I got there, and again as I was leaving so that they could determine that I wasn't stealing anything. That trust means a lot to me, and to them. Some junk yards would not let people wander through, but I had free rein to come and go. Some people didn't understand and thought that I worked at the yard. There was a yard in Colchester, Connecticut that the owner had passed away, and the family was having the yard cleaned out. A professional outfit was doing the clean out. I spoke as a gentleman, not as a know-it-all with the father and son, and it paid great dividends. I would buy coffee, or water for their workers, and never got in their way. I got a lot of good parts from that yard which is now long gone. Tony, the owner, when he was alive, came to the yard on a Saturday morning, saw me sitting outside waiting for him to open the yard. He said to me" why didn't you go in, I told him, "Tony, I don't go into your yard unless you are here." He liked that. It was nice while it lasted.

 

Cycle of life.

 

We had one in Babylon when I was a kid, John Street Auto Wreckers. I would go there with my dad to get parts. Around 1972 it was gone, they built condos over the property. All I recall was how thick the grease was everywhere we went while getting parts. It may have qualified as a Super Fund site. I would have liked to see how they moved it all, the new yard was in Islip, John's Auto Parts, ran by the same people. The yard is still there.

 

Sorry for your lose.My first memory of junkyards was when my bothers buddy wrecked my mothers 63 bel air. Dad got the front end for 35$ and they threw in the radiator for free.we used to have 20 plus yards in St. Paul and Andover not counting Minneapolis (never went over there) all gone now.

 

When I was a kid in San Jose the '70s I was into muscle cars and VW bugs and didn't really frequent junk yards. In 1981, shortly before I went into the service, my parents bought a place in upstate NY and I helped them move. It was a very rural area and I was out of my element but found several junk yards that I'd check out just to see the cars. I ran across a well used hot rod Model A roadster at one of them that I couldn't get out of my head. I visited it several times, it wasn't for sale and I didn't have any place to put it if it was, plus I was scheduled to leave in a couple of months. By the time my tour was up and I went back home the Model A was long gone but I never forgot it and always wanted one like it. It only took 40 years but I finally managed to get one of my own.

 

When I was a kid of about 15 years old growing up in Minneapolis there was an abandoned yard just off of 394 (which was hiway 12 then) not far from the 94 tunnel, which was not built yet. There was lots of 40's and early 50's cars in there. We would be in there on our bicycles taking radios out of cars, and cars would drive in, load up stuff and away they would go. It must have been in-between the time the yard was sold and when the crusher came there.

 

I have witnessed the closing of many, many old bone yards in my life (now 82). Most of my builds up until the last five years were done with salvage yard parts but hardly any of them have anything older than 10 years now.
My high school friend had a yard in Burley WA for the last 50 + years but health got the best of him about a year ago and he had all the 50's and 60's cars he had (maybe a 100) crushed. I imagine all the parts he has in two big buildings will be auctioned off sometime.

SAD SAD SAD

 

The good old days when you could wander freely through a yard searching for just the right treasure. My yard was Paneitz Salvage in Fairbury NE. covering about a 100 acres. Full of treasures. I hauled early Ford front ends by the pickup load from that yard. Buick finned drums were another part he horded. (I still have some in my storage shed) I remember finding a mint 33 Ford hood and grille squirreled away in a car, those went to the Nats in OKC for resale along with several 100 15 & 16 inch trim rings I found stored inside a car. I could go on with countless stories. When I started my chassis business there weren't new rear ends. I have no idea why but Vern had stored away a huge amount of 57-59 Ford 9 inch rears and the entire stash went to my shop where I used everyone of them for customer chassis. Also lots of Vega boxes. Paneitz Salvage was a gold mine for me, made I have no idea how much money reselling and using the parts obtained there.

 

I was born in Redmond Oregon but grew up in Missouri and Illinois. Every 2-4 years we would take a vacation and make the trek to Oregon where Dad's family were. One time when I was young, we went on top of a large cinder cone butte in Oregon and down below was a nice wrecking yard! I thought that would be a really cool thing to own!

Years later we moved to Madras Oregon, 1968 to be exact, during the summer between school years. I don't remember when exactly but I ended up on top of that same butte! Turns out to be Pilot Butte in Bend Oregon. There down below was that wrecking yard! I was thrilled!

Well, that wrecking yard is long gone now and has been for some years. Bend has really grown, for better or worse.

Dad and I almost bought a wrecking yard near Chadron Nebraska. Glad we didn't but it would of been fun, I think. But then, look at my yard where we live here near Madras!

Still love wrecking yards!

Dave

 

Junkyards were like a Disneyland for me.............Sadly, both have changed a lot.

 

I am saddened to here of Floyd's passing. Cagle's was a favorite haunt of mine in the 80's Always found something useful and affordable there. He was great to deal with.

A lot of the old boneyards that I spent my (wasted, according to some) youth are long gone and I am grateful to have grown up in a time when I could scavenge parts for a '56 Chevy with some ease. And they didn't charge me an admission fee.

Good times and places that I do miss.

 

Yep, I never even haggled at Cagles, they always gave a more that fair price. I must have hauled twenty N case nine inch rear ends out of there and countless other parts! I always found something I thought I had to have!
It closed about a year ago and Lynn, Floyd’s son in law that ran the place for years, had a stroke and is in compromised health, but is improving!

If you were there in the eighties a lot…we were probably there at the same time. I can remember seeing twenty+ people out there at one time and more on Saturday morning!


Bones

 

My hometown was a lot smaller when I was a kid and zoning wasn't a big deal. The wrecking yard was at the edge of town and that was a very small walk from home so it became my playground. I spent hours wandering around there. When I became of gearhead age, a big hotel complex sprouted up in its place and the wreckers moved outside of town.

 

Most of us older types have the same memories and stories. Great time to be young but if you weren't a gear head, did it matter?