In the several years of running the McCabe Powers Historical Museum Website, there have been an interesting collection of questions people have asked over the years. Here's a sample of a few.

Q: Can you help me locate parts, manuals or assist in servicing vehicles?

Over the past year (or two) we have gotten a handful of request for parts/service of the greatly aging vehicles that were once built by McCabe-Powers Body Company. As you know, there was a foreclosure in the early 1980s and the remaining parts were sold off and resold a couple times since then.

A few years ago, a company offered parts & maintained the McCabePowers.Com website. They were located somewhere in Texas. Its been a few years since we've had contact with them, and several others have not been able to reach them either. It is also noted that McCabePowers.Com is now offline and the domain has expired as of June, 2006.

I do not anticipate ever hearing from them again, as I am sure there are probably no more parts to be found. After all, the vehicles are now gaining on twenty-five years of age on the last built vehicles. I wish everyone the best of luck in finding parts and I regret not having better news.

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If you're looking for manuals, from time to time, manuals have been found on AutoLit.Com.

Q: Can we visit your museum? Do you have a gift shop?

Every so often, I get an e-mail from someone visiting Saint Louis, asking to visit our museum/showroom. While its somewhat flattering its also a bit funny as our website is an online/virtual museum dedicated to saving the rich history of our family's former company. We have no brick-and-morter showroom or museum.

However, some of our vehicles are in other museums. The 1904 World's Fair Wagonette is currently on loan to the Missouri Historical Society. For the past few years they've displayed it in the Saint Louis History Museum. It has also been brought to our attention that one of our WWII vehicles is in some transportation museum somewhere in the Netherlands... Go figure... Interesting, a bit odd, but flattering.

On the gift shop, yes we sort of do have one. A few years ago I opened a Cafe Press store selling shirts, hats coffee mugs and what-nots with the various McCabe Powers Logos on them. It mainly was a way for my family to get a few nick nacks with our name on it, and the logo of our once wonderful family business.

I do NOT make any profit from this venture, in fact, I'm loosing my shirt on it. It costs me about $50-$60 a year to have the Cafe Press store selling these items. Aside from sales to myself, I've only ever sold to two outside individuals. One lady in California bought a hat and one lady here in Saint Louis (who also has my last name) bought a couple of shirts for her family. The markup on these items is on average only a $1. So therefore, in 4 years I've only made $26 yet spent $200 in having the store online. So please, feel free to buy something!! PLEASE!

Q: Is there any upcoming reunion for retired/former employees?

The last known reunion of McCabe Powers workers was an informal reunion by some sheet metal union workers sometime in the mid 1990s. Please check with the local unions for that kind of information... We absolutely love hearing from former employees. We've heard from former executives, to former sheet metal workers to painters to people on the assembly line. All comments, suggestions, donated photographs of vehicles are greatly appreciate!!!

Q: Who exactly visit your website?

Our website has been used as an education resource for company's that survived the great depression, retooled during World War II, and general transportation history. Teachers and students have used this site on a regular basis.

The website is popular among hearse websites, as McCabe Powers got its start from making quality hearses for decades. Our website at one time had a screen saver that was a very popular download. However, its currently not compatible with WindowsXP and has since been removed.

We've had other odd requests and visitors over the years. We've had people requesting literature for future sales, people looking for blueprints to recreate wagons or scale models of our wagons or trucks. One of the oddest requests came from a company in China requesting sales literature for utility truck bodies. I guess somewhere it was lost in the translation that the company was out of business.