The year 1915 was a big one for the still-fledgling automotive industry.
There were 2.4 million registered cars and trucks on the road, a number that would jump to 3.6 million in 1916.
In Detroit, the Ford Motor Company built its’ one millionth car at the River Rouge plant. Chevrolet Motor Company, which had been founded in 1911 and only began manufacturing cars two years later, built 13,600 cars in 1915, a production increase of more than 160 percent over the previous year.
C.R. Patterson & Sons in Greenfield, Ohio became the first and only African American-owned car company in history.
Meanwhile, just 52 miles east, Victor Shumard opened his second Ford agency in Loveland, Ohio.
Quite a bit has happened since the Loveland Ford Agency officially opened, including changes to the name, ownership and location of the business.
But first, Victor Shumard had to deal with a flood.
Historic Flood Leads to New Beginnings
Victor Shumard was born in 1870, the second son of a well-known local horse and wagon harness businessman in Milford, Ohio. Victor’s father, Thomas, had founded the “T. M. Shumard & Sons” harness factory in 1879.
In 1903, Thomas Shumard split the company, relocating his equipment business to nearby Lockland, Ohio, and leaving the operations of his harness business in Milford to his sons, Victor and Lee.
In 1912, Victor Shumard founded a Ford agency to compliment the family’s transportation business, operating from the 5 Water Street building in downtown Milford near the Little Miami River.
But catastrophe soon struck. On March 24, 1913, storms and flooding overran the Little Miami River, decimating the towns of Milford, Loveland, Miamiville, and South Lebanon. The Great Flood of 1913 is still considered one of Ohio’s greatest natural disasters. Shumard’s building at 5 Water Street was barely saved from being washed away.
In the wake of the disaster, a new steel bridge was constructed in Loveland and real estate was offered at a discount. Ever the businessman, Shumard opened his Loveland Ford Agency at its new location at 211 Riverside Drive in 1915.
Many Ownership Changes Over the Years
Shumard, who was a prolific entrepreneur with expanding business investments in downtown Milford, sold the Loveland Ford Agency and its facility to another local automobile dealer, Charles Wilson by 1923. The dealership would change hands four more times before Robert (Bob) Ring and Jerry Storm took ownership in 1979. Aside from his Loveland Ford dealership, the many transportation businesses and automotive dealerships that Shumard founded during his lifetime would all eventually divest; the last closure occurred as recently as 2009 when the Pontiac agency he founded in the 1930s lost its manufacturer brand, leaving the franchise today known as Kings Ford the sole survivor to carry on his entrepreneurial legacy.
“Although the franchise has changed ownership several times through the years, the past 45 years has been the longest stretch of any singular ownership group or family,” says Joe Ring, Kings Ford Inc.’s COO and minority member. “Ironically, the briefest ownership of the franchise is attributed to its founder [Victor Shumard].”
“In 1979, my father – Bob Ring – leveraged all his assets and took an enormous risk with his business partner Jerry Storm when they purchased the store from its previous owner, Russ Warner,” Ring explains. “Warner sold because he was predicting difficult times ahead, and he was right – my father barely made it during the first four years of ownership when the economy went into recession and interest rates rose above 20%. The fact they survived at all during those trying times, and the store would eventually thrive over the following decades, is a testament to their perseverance and vision.”
In 1995, Kings Ford, Inc. relocated to what has now grown into one of the nation’s largest auto malls – Kings Automall in Cincinnati – which houses approximately 7,000 new and used vehicles from 18 new vehicle manufacturer brands at one location.
A New Period of Stability, Growth
Joe Ring, also known as the local franchise historian, says, “The move from Loveland to Kings Automall saw explosive growth across revenues and especially expenses that was at times overwhelming for Bob; I don’t know that my father could have survived had his daughter, Carol Fuller, and her husband, Doug Fuller, not joined the leadership team in 1995 as a part of the transition. Together, the number of fierce storms they successfully weathered – before I joined the store in my current role as COO in 2014 – was many.”
Today, the Kings Ford dealership is owned and operated by Bob Ring’s daughter, Carol, who serves as president. Kings Ford is proud to be one of the few WBENC-Certified, woman-owned new vehicle dealerships in the state of Ohio. “During our 110-year franchise history, six different male majority owners have operated our franchise,” Ring says. “Two years ago, we turned a chapter in the franchise history with our first female majority owner and operator.”
The other constant has been a dedication to community, sponsoring charities and community events throughout the years. “We are passionate about high school trade skills development to support our industry’s automotive technician needs and we support several local high school automotive institutes,” Carol Fuller says.
As the second oldest continuously operating Ford franchise in the state of Ohio (the title of oldest belongs to Chapman Ford of Marysville, Ohio), Kings Ford will be celebrating its 110th anniversary of the dealership by decorating the store interior with historic images of the franchise and issuing a franchise history pamphlet. By 2025, they also plan to finalize publishing a full online chronicle of the franchise history – already mostly complete – on their company website at www.kingsfordinc.com/history.
“Our family assumed ownership of the franchise in its 64th year, but we’ve collected many years of memories of its history during our 45 years of ownership, and we are excited to share them with our customers and community,” Fuller says.
