Category:Lawfer Automobile Company

The Lawfer Automobile Company, located at 12th and Hamilton Streets, was one of the first automobile dealers in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and one of the first Ford Motor Company dealerships in the United States. He also sold new Chalmers cars. The company was organized in 1906 by J. Harry Lawfer, son of William R. Lawfer who founded the Zollinger-Harned department store in 1866. In 1907 he took his sons, W. Levan and Stanley E. Lawfer into the firm. J. Harry Lawfer passed in July 1916 and his sons took over the firm as a partnership.

In October 1923, the Lawfer dealership took over the John N. Lawfer carpet, rug and drapery company at 926 Hamilton. It used the propty as a display and storage location for used cars. It operated successfully as a Ford dealership until 1935, when it lost it's affiliation with Ford, that was transferred to the Murray Auto Corporation in East Allentown.

It continued to operate as a used car dealership in the same facility for a few months, until being purchased by Alden MacLellan for his Dodge/Plymouth dealership. The Lawfer group subsequently went out of business. In 1943 MacLellan sold the property to Dhal Motors, which moved the Ford dealership from East Allentown into the former Lawfer building. Dhal liquidated it's Allentown businesses in 1959, and the Lawfer building was vacated. It was used briefly by Mack Trucks for a specialized export division for a few months in 1964-1965 but was again vacated and used as a commercial garage.

The Lawfer building was destroyed in a spectacular fire in April 1969. The remains of the building were subsequently torn down and the land has been redeveloped. The gasoline station at the corner (1201 Hamilton) was later expanded with a Bank of America and took over about half of the old Lawfer lot to the east. The west half of the Lawfer lot and the home at Hamilton and Jefferson was replaced by a large, two-story office building and today is the home of Capital Blue Cross Health Insurance.

Camera location	40° 35′ 58″ N, 75° 28′ 56″ W	View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap	40.599444; -75.482222