Arkansas’ Climber

In “Old News” on Monday, Ms. Celia Storey reproduced the advertisement of May 8, 1920, of the 1920 Climber. However, she did not comment on the automobile itself.

The manufacture of the Climber in Little Rock is only a very small part of the history of the automobile in the United States, but it is a highly significant chapter in automotive history in Arkansas. The company only manufactured about 200 automobiles before being placed in receivership and liquidated around 1922. Mr. H.F. Buhler was a company officer who regularly walked the streets of Little Rock in the early 1970s.

Mr. Buhler was interviewed for an article written by Ed Faulkner, which was published in Arkansas Historical

Quarterly, Volume 29, Autumn 1970, p. 215. The article recounts the short ill-fated effort to bring automobile manufacturing to Arkansas. For further reading, the article is available online. (Isn’t everything now?)

Only two of the Climber automobiles are known to still exist, each restored by Mr. Atley Davis of Little Rock. One has a four-cylinder engine; the other has a six-cylinder engine, but the (open) touring car bodies are virtually the same. They are owned by the Museum of Automobiles, atop Petit Jean Mountain, near Petit Jean State Park. One is on display. The advertisement reproduced is a faithful depiction of the actual automobile.

The museum is a nonprofit corporation funded by donations, and exists to preserve the history of the automobile as manufactured. A visit to the museum is well worth the time to see the Climber, a time capsule of history which exists nowhere else in the world. RAYMOND HARRILL

Little Rock