400 Depot Street, Latrobe
We are the Trolley Group, so the building is the Trolley Barn. It is an old brick building on the corner of Depot and Alexandria, and for most of the last century it was the McGuire Garage.
The history
In 1913 this corner was houses, on a street named for the railway depot, in a town that ran on trains. Peter McGuire bought the lot, had the houses pulled down, and put up a brick garage with a plate glass window facing the street. Then he parked a Cadillac in it, where everybody walking to the station would have to look at it.
The Depression came for that bet and did not get it. Neither did urban renewal, which took down a good deal of this town in the seventies and left his corner standing. The Cadillacs stopped coming a long time ago. The building never stopped being the place somebody chose to put something new.
That is his showroom window in the photograph, lit up at Christmas. Our desks are where the Cadillac is parked.
Latrobe
Latrobe is a small Westmoreland County town that has produced an improbable amount for its size. Fred Rogers grew up here. So did Arnold Palmer, and the airport is named for him. The banana split was invented here in 1904, which the town will tell you about. The first professional American football game was played here in 1895.
It is the kind of place where the person at the counter knows your name by the third visit. That is not nostalgia, it is just how a town of eight thousand works, and it is a reasonable standard to hold a business to.
Finding us
Address
Parking
The entrance
Accessibility
We are on the corner of Depot and Alexandria, a few streets from the railway station. Coming from Pittsburgh it is about an hour on Route 30. The Arnold Palmer Regional Airport is ten minutes away.
Come by
If you are local and curious about the building, or you are a client who would rather have the conversation in person than on a call, you are welcome here.
