Tom McLarty (1898–1975)

Tom McLarty, known to many as “Mr. Tom,” was an Arkansas businessman who was part of the beginnings of Hope Auto Company in Hope (Hempstead County), which was founded in 1921 and became an Arkansas business empire. Through the years, McLarty oversaw the diversification of what had become a family business beyond its core automotive enterprise.

Thomas Franklin (Tom) McLarty was born on July 10, 1898, in Hope, the oldest of four children of James Alonzo McLarty and Bertha Venita McLarty. He married Kathleen Briant in 1918 and had one son, Thomas Franklin (Frank) McLarty II. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War I, McLarty returned to Hope and went to work for the newly established Hope Auto Company, a Ford Motor Company dealership in downtown Hope initially owned by a group of local investors who owned what would become Citizens National Bank, one of the two banks in town. McLarty would be promoted to general manager in 1927, and through the 1920s, the Great Depression, and World War II, the dealership experienced solid growth. In 1945, McLarty was honored along with the operator of a Memphis Ford dealership—described as the world’s largest—as one of the two outstanding dealers in the Memphis region. The dealership was also the first in the region to sell a new vehicle off the postwar production line

McLarty sought to diversify his business interests during and after the war. In 1945, he established Hope Finance Company, specializing in refinancing existing vehicle notes and loans on auto titles while allowing the borrower to keep the vehicle. In 1948, McLarty and his partner Carson Lewis purchased Talbot’s Department Store and changed the name to Lewis-McLarty Department Store, which advertised itself as “Hope’s Finest Department Store.” The store was a staple of downtown Hope until it closed in 1986. Over the years, McLarty gradually purchased an increasing number of shares in the dealership, and in 1955, he and his son bought the business outright. While the elder McLarty focused on local family assets as well as working at the dealership daily until he was seventy-six, Frank expanded the family holdings to Ford dealerships in Texarkana (Miller County), Nashville (Howard County), Murfreesboro (Pike County), and Magnolia (Columbia County), as well as a truck leasing firm that became a national model.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, McLarty worked at the dealership daily, where he sold vehicles to longtime friends and customers and mentored younger staff members in all the dealership’s departments. He and Frank McLarty prepared his eldest grandson, Thomas Franklin “Mack” McLarty III, to take over the family business after graduating from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) and serving a brief term in the Arkansas General Assembly.

McLarty also was active in the local Masonic Lodge (thirty-second-degree Mason), was a member of the Scimitar Shrine Temple and the Hope Rotary Club, and was a trustee of the First Presbyterian Church.

McLarty was honored by Ford Motor Company in 1972 for fifty years of continuous work at the dealership. He reminisced, “I’ve seen them all from the solid black Model T of 1922 thru the Model A of 1928 and the V-8’s of 1932 up thru the present big variety in the Ford line.” The elder McLarty maintained an active role in the business as his son Frank’s health began to fail and grandson Mack took over the lead role. Andy Caldwell, who McLarty brought into the business in the 1940s, and his son, Jack, also assumed leadership roles in the McLarty organization. In 1974, Tom McLarty went into semiretirement due to advancing age and health issues.

McLarty died on June 11, 1975, at Hempstead Memorial Hospital in Hope and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery. His wife, Kathleen, survived him by seven years, and son Frank died in 1977. Hope Auto is the second-oldest continuously operating Ford dealership in Arkansas, behind only Smith Ford Company in Conway (Faulkner County).

For additional information:
“50^th Year on the Job.” Hope Star, March 31, 1972, pp. 1, 2.

“Hope Auto Co. Honored by Ford Factory.” Hope Star, October 31, 1945, p. 3.

Hughes, David T. “Frank McLarty, 57, Dies,” Hope Star, July 14, 1977, p. 1.

———. “Funeral Services Set for Thomas McLarty.” Hope Star, June 12, 1975, p. 1.

“Red Letter Day at Hope Auto.” Hope Star, April 5, 1972, p. 7.

“Thomas Franklin ‘Tom’ McLarty.” Find a Grave.com. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36336014/thomas-franklin-mclarty (accessed June 6, 2024).

Washburn, Alex H. “Frank McLarty, War Veteran and Business Leader.” Hope Star, July 15, 1977, p. 1.

Revis Edmonds
Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism