Ewer’s Tire and Auto, 419 East Broadway

Stephen Bybee
Columbia, MO
August, 2011

I took this photograph because I knew that someday this would change. I don’t have this type of intuition as often as I should, and I even less frequently follow up on it. There have been magnificent scenes in Columbia that I have not photographed and documented since I moved here in 1995. And there have been similar buildings, streets, and vantages that I have photographed and documented before they changed or disappeared forever. This might not be the most exciting, artistic or historic storefront I have photographed in Columbia, but it has changed, and here we have a modest record of how it once looked. This was taken on a hot evening in late August, and at the time I was fascinated with a desire to document some of Columbia’s buildings using a very literal, documentary style. This image is one of several that I produced during that time, and several of the buildings, storefronts, and scenes have changed since 2011. Historically, the interesting thing about this building is that an automotive business of some sort has been on this corner since 1914, just nine years after the first automobile arrived in Columbia and six years after the streets of downtown Columbia were covered with a solid brick surfacing. Using photography to document your community often involves the ability to regard the commonplace or mundane as something precious that time and development will inevitably transform.