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When Sandwich Changed from Horses to Automobiles
Photo restored by Herk Schmidt
At first glance, it looks like a parade of old automobiles on Main Street.
But this photograph captures something much larger than a line of early cars.
It preserves a moment when Sandwich was changing from one era into another, from horses, wagons, blacksmith shops, and carriage makers to garages, gasoline engines, movie theaters, and modern downtown commerce. Many of those changes happened not in different parts of town, but within the same blocks and sometimes even the same buildings.
What began as a closer look at a single photograph slowly became something else: a reconstruction of a living streetscape.
The signs painted on buildings, the businesses tucked into corners, the advertisements in old newspapers, and the names scattered across Sanborn maps all began connecting together into a larger story about how downtown Sandwich evolved between the late nineteenth century and the early automobile age.
Reading the Photograph
The image that launched this project shows Main Street crowded with automobiles while familiar downtown buildings rise behind them.
The Hummel Building can be seen along the left side of the street. Beyond it stood businesses, workshops, hotels, and commercial buildings that had already witnessed decades of change before the first automobiles ever rolled into town.
By the time this photograph was taken, Sandwich was no longer simply a horse and wagon community. Automobiles were arriving in large numbers, garages were appearing downtown, and older commercial structures were adapting to new technology.
Yet traces of the earlier town still remained everywhere.
Before the Automobile
Long before gasoline engines arrived, this district was already one of the busiest working areas in Sandwich.
The streets around Main, Eddy, and Center were filled with:
- wagon makers
- carriage builders
- blacksmith shops
- machine work
- repair businesses
- lumber yards
- livery operations
- manufacturing shops
Sanborn fire insurance maps reveal a dense commercial landscape where businesses stood shoulder to shoulder beside rail traffic and industrial activity.
One of the most important businesses in the district was the Kehl Brothers carriage and wagon works near the corner of Eddy and Center Streets, across from the Wallace House area.
Advertisements from the 1880s described the Kehl Brothers as builders of:
- farm wagons
- buggies
- wagon boxes
- sleighs
- cutters
- repair work
- blacksmithing
- machine work
Their operation represented the transportation economy of nineteenth century Sandwich , a town still powered by horses, iron, woodwork, and skilled hand labor.
An Industrial Giant in the Middle of Town
The Sanborn maps also reveal something modern visitors might not immediately realize:
Much of this district was dominated by Sandwich Manufacturing Company.
1909 map showing the area between Main and Green St, from Center to First Street
Although the company maintained a recognizable office building along Main Street, the operation extended far beyond a single storefront. On the 1909 Sanborn map, nearly every pink colored industrial structure in the block west of Main Street belonged to SMC.
The complex included:
- foundries
- machine shops
- woodworking departments
- painting and finishing rooms
- repair departments
- storage areas
- shipping facilities
- Railroad access into the plant
- blacksmith operations
- and specialized manufacturing spaces spread across multiple connected buildings.
Tracks, work yards, lumber storage, and industrial support buildings surrounded the plant.
At its height, Sandwich Manufacturing Company reportedly covered nearly fourteen acres, an industrial footprint remarkable for a small Illinois town.
For generations, the sounds of machinery, hammering, steam power, and railroad activity formed part of daily life in downtown Sandwich. The factory was not isolated on the edge of town.
It was woven directly into the community itself.
The Buildings Adapted
One of the most fascinating discoveries connected to this project is that the district did not disappear when automobiles arrived.
Instead, it adapted.
The same streets that once supported carriage makers and blacksmith shops gradually transformed into automobile service districts.
Evidence suggests that the old Kehl building later housed Sawyer’s Auto Garage during the early automobile era.
Advertisements for Sawyer’s garage promoted:
- Ford automobiles
- Buick automobiles
- Flanders automobiles
- tire repair
- vulcanizing
- batteries
- automobile painting
- supplies and repair work
A surviving photograph of Sawyer’s Auto Garage on Center Street shows early automobiles parked outside a large commercial brick structure that likely evolved directly from the earlier carriage and wagon era.
In many ways, the transition from wagons to automobiles did not replace downtown Sandwich, it reused it.
The same buildings simply entered a new age.
From Wagons to Automobiles
Kehl Building during the horse & carriage era. SW corner of Main & Center
The Kehl building witnessed one of the most dramatic transformations in American transportation history.
In its earlier years, the structure housed carriage manufacturing, blacksmithing, horse shoeing, painting, trimming, and wagon repair. Large painted signs advertised “Fine Carriages, Surreys, Buggies & Road Carts,” serving the horse powered economy that once dominated Sandwich streets.
By the early twentieth century, the same building had adapted to a new age.
The carriage works became Sawyer’s Auto Garage. Automobiles lined Center Street where wagons had once stood. The painted advertisements changed, but the building remained a center of transportation and mechanical work.
Rather than disappearing with the rise of the automobile, the property evolved alongside it.
The transition can still be seen in surviving photographs:
one building,two eras,and a changing America reflected on the streets of Sandwich.
The sign “Sales and Livery” hints at a transitional period in Sandwich transportation history. Even as automobiles appeared on Center Street, horse powered transportation had not yet disappeared. For a time, garages, carriages, horses, blacksmithing, and automobiles all operated side by side within the same downtown district.
Kehl Building during the early automobile era. SW corner of Main & Center
A Changing Downtown
At the same time transportation was changing, entertainment and business life were evolving as well.
Opera houses gave way to movie theaters.
Older storefronts adapted to new commercial uses.
Railroad Street became increasingly active with theaters, garages, restaurants, hotels, and modern businesses serving a changing public.
The Royal Theatre became part of this transformation. Newspaper references and later photographs trace its movement and continued operation during the silent film era, tying the entertainment history of Sandwich directly into the changing downtown landscape.
Together, these fragments reveal a town modernizing in real time.
More Than Old Buildings
This project began with a photograph.
But the deeper story is not simply about architecture or old businesses.
It is about adaptation.
The same streets that once echoed with:
- horseshoes
- wagon wheels
- blacksmith hammers
- steam machinery
would later fill with:
- automobile engines
- garage traffic
- movie crowds
- electric signs
- and modern commerce.
Downtown Sandwich did not emerge all at once.
It evolved one storefront, one business, and one generation at a time.
And many of those stories are still hiding in plain sight.
Facts at a Glance
- Main Street and the Eddy/Center Street district formed one of Sandwich’s busiest commercial and industrial areas during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- The Kehl Brothers operated a carriage and wagon works near Eddy and Center Streets during the 1880s.
- Early Sanborn maps document blacksmith shops, machine work, foundries, wagon works, and commercial buildings throughout the district.
- Sawyer’s Auto Garage later operated in the area, advertising Ford, Buick, and Flanders automobiles.
- The Royal Theatre eventually became part of the Railroad Street commercial district during the silent film era.
- The Hummel Building, Wallace House district, and surrounding commercial blocks remained important visual anchors during Sandwich’s transition into the automobile age.
Continue the Story
Research & Sources
Primary sources used in this article include:
- Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
- Historic Sandwich business advertisements
- Local newspaper archives
- Early downtown photographs
- Automobile garage advertisements
- Royal Theatre references and business notices
- Historic Main Street and Railroad Street imagery shared through community collections and local research archives