Change Comes to the Blacksmith Shop

Read about how blacksmiths back in the day dealt with societal changes in transportation.

By Sam Moore
Published on May 3, 2022
article image
by Auto and Tractor Shop
No. 1: The old blacksmith shop.

By the time of World War One, the people of this country were fast-changing over from the horse and buggy to the automobile. This change affected lots of businesses, such as those that manufactured buggies, harnesses, and whips. In addition, every community had a small and often ramshackle building where the village smithy was located. Although the local blacksmith was relied upon to repair wagons, buggies, and tools of all kinds, a huge part of his business was shoeing horses, and the decline in the use of driving horses, as well as draft horses as they were slowly being replaced by tractors, began to hurt business for these blacksmiths.

The following article in the August, 1918 issue of Auto and Tractor Shop Magazine, took notice of how some blacksmiths coped with the situation.

About Horseshoes and Luck

Back in my younger days, before dad sanctioned long pants, my somewhat older friend Spike enlightened me as to horseshoes and the luck attached to them. One day Spike caught a frog and showed it to me. “Ain’t you scared of gettin’ warts?” I asked. “Nah,” replied Spike, “I can handle frogs an’ toads all I want and never catch a wart ’cause I’ve got a lucky horeseshoe at home that I handle just afore goin’ to bed ev’ry night.”

So the very next day I bought a horseshoe from Danny Smith, the blacksmith’s son, for three cents. That three cents meant three whole days of doing without my favorite candy — lemon balls, but it was worth it. I sneaked that chunk of iron home and it worked like a charm. Even when dad found it he didn’t scold me. Instead he suggested nailing it over the door.

But if that one shoe meant so much to me, thought I, how about the blacksmith himself with all those shoes around his shop? I asked Spike and he replied scornfully, “Don’t you know nuthin’? That’s why he never slams his finger with a hammer, or gets burnt by the red hot iron bars he’s always handlin’ Why they mean just loads of good luck to him!”

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