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Kyle Riley, Jeremy Jones, Jay Schnieders, Mike Riley, Kevin Riley, and Carey Riley Photo by Keith Borgmeyer
office was located. In 1949, he changed the name again, this time to Riley Chevrolet. The dealership offered new and used car sales, parts, and service from its location at 216 E. Capitol. A newspaper ad from the fall of 1936 highlighted used cars for sale, from a 1928 Ersking Coach for $35 to a 1935 Chevrolet Master Sport coupe with 15,000 miles for $535 that had be cleared out of the way for new models arriving. Carey Riley says the dealership was where the parking garage on Madison Street and E. Capitol is now, extending back 120 | July/August 2016
to Commercial Avenue. The building had an open stairway in the middle, leading to offices upstairs. A repair shop (the service center) was adjacent to the showroom floor, closed from view by a heavy sliding door. “You could get a Coca-Cola from the vending machine in the back for seven cents,” Mike recalls. The brothers remember their grandfather’s stories of the car business during World War II, when there was no inventory of new cars. “After the war, the plants started back up, and people would
come in and put down a deposit and their name on a list for the new cars coming in,” says Mike. “Others would try to come with a bigger deposit to get ahead, but our grandfather wouldn’t allow it.” According to The Sunday News and Tribune’s September 20, 1959 article highlighting the dealership’s 23rd birthday, Riley Chevrolet had sold thousands of vehicles since 1936. In 1960, Riley Chevrolet changed locations, moving to Highway 50 and Missouri Boulevard, across from St. Mary’s