Hurtsboro history includes BMWs

Once each week, I make a trip to the Town of Hurtsboro in southern Russell County. The reason for the trip is irrelevant to this column, but if you are curious and must know – I am the Operator of Record for the Hurtsboro Water and Sewer Board. I check their wells each week and send in the necessary paperwork to keep the system in compliance with the rules and regulations of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.


But, like I stated, that has nothing to do with this column.

While on that trip each week, I stop by Perry’s Hardware and visit a few minutes with Rick Perry, the store’s owner. The store has been the Perry Family business for nearly 100 years. Rick has not been working there quite that long.

The past week when I stopped by the store, Rick - a bit of a Hurtsboro historian – told me a tale that left me flabbergasted. It seems that back in the 1920s, Hurtsboro was a hot stop for BMW sales. Rick said BMW sold more of its vehicles in Hurtsboro than in any city in the state.

My reaction to that – Wow! That was unbelievable.

The information got me to thinking. How was this even possible? My feeble mind wanted to know.

I do not know a lot about BMW, but I knew some things that just did not fit this picture that Rick was painting. BMWs, at that time, were produced only in Germany. The company began in the early 1900s – about 1916 – and made engines for airplanes. The company began making automobiles in 1929 which would mean Hurtsboro’s owners were at the head of the line in purchasing the new vehicles. The first BMWs had engines that were originally engineered for motorcycles. But, Henry Ford’s first engines were not much different.

Transporting vehicles from Germany to the United States in the 1920s had to be a more difficult task than it is today. There were no real super cargo ships to transport large numbers of automobiles. So how could – according to Rick – more than 20 BMWs get across the Atlantic Ocean to Hurtsboro? How long would this take? And, did all these BMWs get delivered to Hurtsboro at the same time?

Maybe a more important question to ask is why would anyone in Hurtsboro want a BMW in the 1920s?

World War I had not long ended. If my history is correct, we were at war with Germany. I know after World War II no citizen of the United States would buy a Volkswagen so soon after that major conflict. Why would anyone in the United States feel differently after World War I? Were the citizens of Hurtsboro sympathizers of Germany? Was there a larger German population in Hurtsboro in the 1920s? I knew I would need to do more investigation into our county’s history to be able to answer these questions.

Hurtsboro was quite a hub of industry early on in its history. There were at least two soft drink bottling companies in the town around the turn of the 20th century. Hurtsboro was a prosperous community. So, there was plenty of money available to be used to purchase vehicles – even BMWs.

I had run all these questions and points of logic through my mind in a matter of seconds as Rick relayed the information he had discovered during his research of his home town. I could see he was aware I was having trouble rationalizing the information he was sharing.

It was then that Rick explained the rest of the story. BMW did not stand for Bavarian Motor Works. It stood for Brown Mule and Wagon. I had fallen for Rick’s trick – hook, line and sinker. I am so gullible. Maybe next time Rick tells me something that does not compute I will ask him for the punch line before I put a strain on my brain.