Sims McBride’s Garage

The McBride garage is a one-story, brick, one-part commercial building/garage. Built ca.1920, the garage follows a fairly conventional pattern for a one-part commercial block, and was probably one of the better constructed commercial buildings in Orem during that period.

This brick garage was a prominent fixture on Provo Bench’s State Street (State Highway 91) when the automobile was just beginning to make its debut in the area. State Street, at the time, had very few commercial buildings, especially of brick construction.

Most of them were small buildings, mainly fruit stands, of wood construction. The garage, apparently built by Sims McBride, is a good representation of the commercial changes occurring on the bench, particularly in transportation, which would bring greater prosperity to the area. Orem employed strip zoning rather than a downtown central core arrangement and this building reflects that pattern of development.

Located at 600 North State Street in Orem, Utah – it was known as Big John’s Country Store when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, in 2013 it was The Scooter Lounge and in 2022 is it Scissor and Bone Barber Shop.

The building to the north is on the same parcel of land, I saw a comment on facebook saying:
The pink building next to this one was built in 1947-48. It was not pink back then, but a white one with with a green and white awning. It was built by my father, Varian C Hodgkinson as dry cleaning plant, Fashion Dry Cleaners. He built it after returning home from Japan in WWII. He also built a small home behind the “shop” as we called it. It was supposed to be temporary but ended up being our home until 1969 when we moved to south Orem. I was 16 at the time. Dad sold the shop in 1975 or 1976 and retired from the dry cleaning business. I do remember the Orchards and trees all around us. We worked hard and played hard and had great experiences.