Back in the early 1970's I worked at a car wash owned by "Townsend Strong". It was the SPD Car Wash in Redbud Center, at about Slide and 13th Street. The car wash is long gone, and not a trace remains. Most of the people who worked at that car wash seemed to have ties to one or the other of the two families who constituted corporate Townsend Strong, the Townsends, and the Strongs. The corporate office was located on the east side of the canyon on East Broadway where McKenzie Park is located. "Townsend Strong" seems to be history. I don't know what happened. I am not aware of any prominent Townsends and the only Strong I am aware of is a home builder but I don't know whether he has anything to do with the Strong family who was part of that old alliance of wealthy Lubbock families. It's sort of a mystery. We drove out to the site of the former business office and I photographed the sad remains. I'm sure the families were into much more than car washes, maybe the oil business.
Looking back, I can say that "Townsend Strong" seemed to treat their employees well. They rewarded loyalty. I didn't work for them very long. I went on to better things. There was an interesting fiasco when the automated track that guided cars through the wash broke down. I might write about that someday.
I worked really hard in the SPD car wash, back in the day.
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