Winfield Ruben Stephens, Sr. was born on April 2, 1886 in Minnesota. He had a number of different jobs as a young man. Although the 1910 Census shows his occupation to be cigar salesman, his biographer reported that by 1909 he worked for A.F. Chase, Minneapolis’s first auto dealer. By 1914 he was a salesman at the Pence Automobile Co. at 800 Hennepin Ave. (at Harmon Place). By 1916 he was the sales manager.
During World War I the Minnesota Safety Commission formed Motor Reserve Corps to transport troops during WWI. It was made up of private citizens who owned automobiles. It became Home Guard Motor Corps and Stephens was put in charge. The Corps rounded up draft dodgers, dispersed rioters, and provided transport during fires and disasters. In response to the October 12, 1918 Moose Lake fire, the Motor Corps arrived from Minneapolis in 12 hours. They transported refugees, found bodies, dug graves, transported food and clothes.
In 1920 Stephens and Pence purchased the Minneapolis Northfield, & Southern Railroad as the first part of an all-rail link to Detroit. Stephens had a private railroad car for use during trips to Detroit to pick up cars. The 1928 Minneapolis phone directory shows him as the Vice President, Electric Short Line Terminal Co. and Minnesota Western Railroad.
W.R. STEPHENS CO.
In 1930 Stephens purchased Pence Auto and it became W.R. Stephens Co. The 1930 census indicates he Stephens made $60,000 that year. He lived in a house on Cedar Lake Ave. in Minneapolis that recently sold for over a million dollars. Sales fell with the advent of the Depression, however, and he lost the house. After World War II, car sales went through the roof, and Stephens was in two locations downtown: his showrooms and service center were at 1301 Harmon Place, and his used car lot was at 1016 Hennepin Ave.
Stephens was a leading figure in the community. In 1931 he served as Potentate, Zurhruh Temple of the Shrine. In 1940 he helped create the Aquatennial, serving as the first and second Commodore in 1940 and 1941.
WIN STEPHENS BUICKTOWN USA
On January 10, 1963, the Minneapolis Star reported that Stephens Buick Co., a “fixture in downtown Minneapolis for 32 years,” would moved into a new “Auto Plaza” in St. Louis Park. The complex of buildings was expected to cost $750,000, and include showrooms, a service center, a service (gas) station, and a restaurant. The showrooms would display 30 new Buicks and 100 used cars. The service department would have a capacity to work on 150 cars per day. The service station would have four lubrication areas, and the restaurant would seat 75 people.
The Star reported that the move from Minneapolis to St. Louis Park had been made in its June 28, 1963 edition. Win Stephens, Jr. announced that the Grand Opening would continue all through July. The report said that the facilities include 80,000 square feet of space for new and used car showrooms, and service center and restaurant.
A large Grand Opening ad was published in the Star on June 30, 1963, that included the following graphics:
On July 7, 1963, another ad read that the dealership also maintained a large used car sales center at 909 E. Excelsior Blvd. in Hopkins. The tract on the highway was described as four acres – more land was added later and another addition was built for the used car lot.
The contemporary main building houses service facilities, a glass-walled new car showroom, and office space. Four canopied “islands” provide cover for 100 used cars and a nearby parking area will accommodate 180 customer cars. A fabulous 200,000 square feet of up-to-the-minute sales and service facilities establishes Win Stephens Buick as the most economic service center and most outstanding automobile dealership in the Upper Midwest. (Minneapolis Tribune)
PORTRAIT OF A LANDMARK
In 2021, former employee Michael Hukka donated the photograph below to the St. Louis Park Historical Society, and told this story.
This photo was taken during the grand opening of the dealership in 1963. When I started with Stephens in 1982 in the parts department, the photo hung in the showroom floor. If you look at the showroom floor in the photo, there is a yellow station wagon in the back of the showroom. At the back of that car, you can see a white partition. It hung on that partition. Eventually the photo was taken down, probably in the ’90s, and was stored upstairs in the parts room.
At sometime after Win had sold the dealership, Warren Holcomb, another employee, and a relative of the Stephens family, was instructed to clean out the area it was stored in. In the dumpster the photo went. I fetched it out as well as the architects original framed drawing of the building. Another employee asked if he could have the drawing, so I gave that to him, and eventually that went to someone in the Stephens family. I took the framed photograph home and it hung in my garage until 2016 when I moved from Rosemount to Hibbing, and then it went into a storage unit.
The Historical Society is grateful for this donation of one our long-lost but not forgotten businesses and landmarks that lit up Highway 100.
A body shop was added in 1965 and was converted to use for mechanical work when an addition was built in 1967 for the body shop.
General Motors filmed a movie of the dealership to be shown to dealers as a model. Verlin A. Lutz was the General Manager for many years.
In the photo below you can see the additional land on the left where the used car building was added.
The following photo gallery was taken in 1977 by Emory Anderson.
The photos below, also by Emory Anderson, are from 1997:
In 1989 Highway 100 was reconfigured and the I394 interchange resulted in the State taking some of the property by eminent domain. Profits dropped, and the dealership was sold on November 16, 1993.
WESTSIDE VW
Westside Volkswagen bought the property for $1.5 million in 1993 and built new buildings.
