Auction to sell 113-year-old Cowie Electric

A piece of Wichita’s automotive history is headed for the auction block in May and to a possible future as a retail and entertainment hub in the shadow of Intrust Bank Arena, its owner hopes.

Jim Thorn, 79, is stepping away from one of Wichita’s oldest businesses, the 113-year-old Cowie Electric shop at 230 S. Topeka, once home to a battalion of auto mechanics that could fix just about anything – until computers took over cars.

The store at 230 S. Topeka, the building just to the north at 222 S. Topeka and an adjoining parking lot – about 22,000 square feet of buildings and land – will be sold.

And then, there’s what auctioneer Megan McCurdy of Wichita’s McCurdy Auction calls “the personal property” of the business – an incredible assemblage of old cars and auto parts, many for vehicles harder to find than the parts themselves. And a collection of magnetos, a power source for engines, dating back to the early 20th century.

“We’ve got a bunch of work to be ready for a sale,” McCurdy said. “But we’re going to be ready.”

Thorn hopes the property will be attractive to an arena neighborhood developer. He’s hoping for a quick sale, one reason he said he chose the auction route over a protracted commercial real estate offering.

“I’m in uncharted waters, to be perfectly honest with you,” he said. “I could have gone to any of a half-dozen Realtors in town I know. Now, if someone offered me $3 million for the whole … thing, I’d disappear.”

McCurdy said she expects a big response to the sale, based on the property’s proximity to the arena and the collection of rare and impossible-to-find auto parts.

“Value? You never know,” she said. “There are so many different potential uses and buyers for the property. Each one of those is going to come in with a different mind-set on what they’ll have to invest in the property to make it what they need to be.

“Our goal isn’t necessarily to determine the value ahead of the auction. Let’s get everybody here who’s interested, and we’ll find out what the market thinks it’s worth.”

The closing is the end of an era that began in 1899 when Ernest Cowie opened a small store on East 12th Street in Kansas City to sell a spring-motor phonograph for his friend Thomas Edison, according to the company’s 50th-anniversary history book. The company quickly evolved into an electrical contractor, doing work at Electric Park, the Kansas City Star building and the Jackson County Courthouse.

But as automobiles developed, Cowie Electric evolved into a repair shop and opened a store in downtown Wichita in 1916. Cowie has been housed in the South Topeka location since 1934, Thorn said.

At the height of business, the company was an active automotive and small-engine repair shop, with eight departments specializing in everything from fuels to small engines and radiators.

Thorn said he joined the business on May 31, 1956, and took over from his father, who rose from sweeper when he started in 1917 to company president.

It’s painful to step away from what’s been the family business for almost a century, Thorn said.

“Will it be hard to leave?” he repeated.

“Oh, yeah.”

This story was originally published February 2, 2012 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Auction to sell 113-year-old Cowie Electric."