Car marks birthday
CONNOQUENESSING TWP — A Butler County car club will have a birthday party on Saturday for a special guest — a 1909 Huselton.
The Butler Old Stone House Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America will mark the 100th anniversary of the "Butler Built" Huselton automobile, built by Edgar Huselton.
The party, which will run from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Butler Farm Show Grounds on Route 68, will include clowns, an antique gas pump display, a collectible bicycle display, an antique car display, pictures and rides in the cars available and an ice cream social. Parking is free.
This is the first time the vehicle has had a birthday party, said club secretary Mary Etta White.
"We decided since it was 100 years, we should do it for the city," she said.
The city owns the vehicle, which was donated in 1984 by B.C. Huselton III, the great-grandson of the car's maker, Edgar Huselton. It is a race-a-bout body with a 40-horse power engine.
The Butler car club is the permanent caretaker of the 1909 Huselton. The club restored the car and has kept it in its current condition.
Huselton built 12 cars, one truck and a funeral hearse with five employees in a small garage on North Washington Street. The 1909 Huselton is the only one known to exist.
"He only had a few employees, so that's all he could make," White said.
Few people know that there were five cars built in Butler. They were the Bantam, Jeep, Austin, Standard and the Huselton.
The car club has the Huselton along with a 1922 closed Standard and a 1920 open Standard, which is being restored.
The Butler car club was formed in 1965 by a small group of automobile lovers. The name was chosen to recognize the then newly restored Old Stone House on Route 8 north of Butler.
