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Rusk Auto-House Found

When I first learned about the Rusk Auto-House, I discovered that one was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, Building #87002634 — but the address didn’t make sense. I walked around that block, and found nothing but parking lot. I assumed it was torn down quite some time ago, but in going through my Binford Guide archive I found a photo of that very Rusk. Located on a house’s driveway exiting on to 7th avenue, a half block west of Broadway and facing St. Mary’s Cathedral, sat this pressed-steel garage. That was in 1988; the garage must have disappeared not long after, as I don’t ever remember anything on that corner except parking lot.

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Stay At The Auto-House

This funny little tin house is a throwback to an earlier time — one before houses were automatically assigned a wide-open, roofed, cement-floored siamese twin known as a ‘garage’. When people started buying cars they needed someplace to put them, and one of the competitors in the ‘automobile storage kit’ was the Rusk Auto-House, an overtly-fancy steel shed that owes its beauty to its Fargo-based manufacturer: a producer of embossed tin ceilings and copper cornices. Sadly, the metal shortages of the World Wars put an end to tin ceilings, copper cornices, and, as you might guess, stylish little steel car-homes.