What I know for sure is that Atkinson offered an automobile repair service from his shop on St. Louis Street as early as 1905. He had previously sold sporting goods and electrical equipment, including bicycles and phonographs, and he continued to sell these products even after he branched into the automobile repair business.
The next year, 1906, Atkinson became an authorized agent of the Cadillac Motor Company and started selling new Cadillacs from his St. Louis Street store. He still continued handling a variety of other goods as well, as you can see in the accompanying advertisement from a Springfield newspaper in April of that year.
In early 1909, Atkinson moved his place of business to East Walnut Street, but he still dealt in essentially the same line of goods he had sold at the other place, including automobiles. However, sometime during this year or late 1908, he quit dealing in Cadillacs and instead started selling De Tamble automobiles. New De Tambles cost $650, as the advertisement below from a November 1908 Springfield newspaper shows.
In early 1910, Atkinson moved again, this time to 308 S. Jefferson, and started selling R.E.O.s, which cost $1250, almost twice as much as the De Tamble. For at least a short while, he was a dealer for both De Tambles and R.E.O.s.
By 1911, Atkinson had started selling Fords and apparently discontinued selling other makes. At least Ford cars were the ones he mainly promoted in newspaper ads such as the one below from a September 1911 Springfield newspaper.
As a sideline, or maybe it was something more than a sideline, Atkinson also began selling Ohio Electric cars while still hawking the Fords, which he continued to sell until his death in early 1914. Suffice it to say that J. E. Atkinson wore a lot of different caps as a merchant in early 1900s Springfield.
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