The plan for Saturday’s Spring Fling at the Corbitt Museum is to have trucks and tractors on display for the public to view and ooh and aah over, but when you’re dealing with vehicles that are as old as the Corbitts that are around here, Tom Burleson said “you keep your fingers crossed.”
The annual event will take place April 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and it’s a perfect time for folks to stop by and learn more of the history about the Corbitt family and its many contributions to the Henderson area, according to Burleson, vice president of the Corbitt Preservation Association.
Burleson himself grew up on Corbitt Road, he said on Wednesday’s TownTalk. And his childhood home was just up the street from the Corbitt mansion, that stood where Wester Realty now stands.
The Corbitts owned The Little Hotel and Mrs. Corbitt ran it back in the day, when Mr. Corbitt was busy cranking out trucks, military vehicles and tractors.
“We’ve got a good story to tell,” Burleson said. “We want to try to interest some younger folks.” His fellow Corbitt enthusiasts have “a lot of snow on the mountain,” he quipped and Corbitt Preservation Association events like the Spring Fling help to keep the history alive.
The association’s members are always on the lookout for Corbitt memorabilia and continue to collect it for display at the museum, located at 180 Church St. One recent addition is a promissory note dated 1917 signed by THE Richard J. Corbitt himself.
The company was founded in 1899 and produced horse-drawn buggies, Burleson said, then it morphed to motorized buggies, then automobiles, trucks and tractors. The Corbitt Company found its niche, however, in military vehicles.
One board member chugs down I-85 in his 1950 model truck that originally was purchased for use by the J.W. Jenkins Oil Co. in Henderson. “He gets some of the strangest looks,” Burleson said, but it’s just one of the trucks and tractors that’s still chuggin’ along.
Hopefully, it will be parked outside the Corbitt Museum Saturday.
Fingers crossed.
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