Malle Service and Tire was the oldest Bowes tire repair facility in the U.S., as well as the oldest tire dealer in the four-state area
Pittsburg, Kan.—After 97 years of operating at the same location, family-owned Malle Service and Tire in Pittsburg, Kan., closed its doors on July 30. It was the oldest Bowes tire repair facility in the U.S., as well as the oldest tire dealer in the four-state area of Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
“It’s time for me to retire,” said owner Ed Malle, 65, in a letter to his customers announcing the news. “My family has been a fixture in this town. The customer support has kept us here through good and bad times. I have seen generation after generation of families keeping our doors open, and that overwhelms me.”
Malle has sold the tire business, oil change, battery and auto maintenance to Vietti Auto Body in Joplin, Mo., owned by Jeff Wood, who Malle has known for years, and where one of his former employees, Jacob “Beard” Sanders, will now work. His other employee, Shane Drenick, has chosen to follow other opportunities.
“I’ve enjoyed the people that came in — well, 99 percent of them,” he continued. “Bureaucracy and having to admit that I’m not as good as I used to be is hard to admit. I have enjoyed talking to people, just ask Shane and Jacob. Heck, they both tell me to get out of the way so they can get something done.”
As a fourth-generation owner, he said his great-grandfather started the business in 1924. Ed Malle began full time in the family business in December 1979 (41 years, 7 months, he noted).
“My family survived the Depression, recessions, gas shortages, allocations, product shortages, hot summers, cold winters, long hours, last year’s pandemic and this country’s worst recession. [And] government regulations and more policy changes than you can imagine.”
“My family never wanted to be the biggest, just the best.”
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