Tracing 75 Years of Downtown HistoryThrough One Laramie Radiator Shop
There wasn’t much doubt about what Arvin Martinez was going to do when he graduated from Laramie High School in 1986. He would continue his after-school activity of learning the automotive radiator business.
“I started as a kid at Laramie Radiator Works in 1977. At first I’d sweep the floors,” Martinez recalls, “but then my dad taught me how to unsolder radiators that had to be taken apart for repair. The solder collected in a test tank I’d work over. It could be gathered up and the lead reused.” Now he is the third owner of that radiator business, interviewed at his office at 203 E. Baker St., formerly Rinker’s Auto Salvage.
The Baker St. address is the latest of eight different locations Laramie Radiator Works has had since Rolland R. “Red” Rutledge founded it in 1947. According to Martinez, Red and his brother Harold Rutledge worked in a Fort Collins radiator shop when they branched out into Wyoming. Harold started a radiator shop in Cheyenne in 1946 and the next year Red (he did have red hair) opened a Laramie shop at 512 S. 2nd St., where Clure Brothers Furniture is now.
“In 1964 Rutledge moved to his second location at 264 N. 3rd, next door to where Amos Bovee had operated a Studebaker and Hudson auto dealership. That’s where he was when my dad, Lawrence Martinez, started working for him in 1964. But around 1970, Dad began working nights for Rutledge,” says Martinez. “His day job was working for Laramie’s Montgomery Ward appliance and catalog store at 509 S. 2nd St. that had added an auto repair shop.” Another branch of Clure’s is there now.
In 1969, Laramie Radiator Works moved to 1470 N. 3rd St. The original building is long gone, replaced by an exercise studio, but a reminder can still be seen in the small building housing equipment that removes contaminants from the soil left by a leaking underground storage tank” (LUST for short). This equipment, mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency, can be seen in several places on 3rd St. where gas stations used to be located. “That old building was too large and hard to heat, so the radiator shop moved to its 4th location, 968 N. 3rd St.,” Martinez recalls. It was where Leon New’s Texaco station had been.
““Dad went full-time with Rutledge in 1975,” says Martinez, “then he bought the business from him in 1977. He moved the shop in 1989 to what had been the Plainsman 66 gas station at 320 Grand Ave. “We had to pump gas to keep the lease. The Boomerang bought that lot about seven years later, so the shop moved again. Its 6th location was 117 E. Lyon St.,” says Martinez, “and we still own that building.” Then Martinez also started a side business, Rhino Linings, offering a protective coating for pickup truck beds.
Arvin Martinez assumed ownership of the business when his dad died suddenly in 1999. In 2002 the Laramie Radiator Works moved to its 7th location at 1457 N. 3rd, which had been A & J Motors, a Buick dealership operated by Alex Hilim and Jim Bath. The building later housed at different times a trucking business, Crescent Electrical Supply, and Detail Muffler and Radiator. The latter, a competitor for Laramie Radiator Works, went out of business in 2002. For a while, Arvin partnered with his cousin, Troy Trujillo, who sold and repaired tires while Martinez operated Rhino Linings and Laramie Radiator Works under the same roof on N. 3rd St.
In 2016, Martinez purchased Rinker’s Auto Salvage and moved Laramie Radiator Works to that location. “The demand for salvage radiators makes a good fit with the radiator repair service,” according to Martinez. “We have specialized equipment to test every used radiator that we pull from an old car. We are sure it has no leaks before we supply it to the customer.”
Martinez explains that radiator technology hasn’t changed much over time. Radiators dissipate heat from engines, allowing them to be more efficient and preventing self-destruction. Antifreeze keeps the coolant from freezing in cold weather; radiator pressure caps keep radiators from boiling over like they used to do.
Newer aluminum radiators are lighter weight but tend not to last as long as traditional copper and brass radiators. “Anti-corrosion additives are essential for aluminum radiators with plastic tanks,” Martinez says, adding that they “are part of our throw-away society now, often replaced instead of repaired. The original copper and brass ones can usually be repaired in about a day.”
For a while it was thought that air-cooling alone might make radiators obsolete. That was tried on some Corvaire, Volkswagen Beetle, and Porsche cars. “Except for those older models, every car has a radiator and fan now, including new hybrid vehicles. Even many stationary engines, like generators, have radiators and we repair them all,” says Martinez, who has seven employees. One works at the second location for the business, in Cheyenne.
“Nothing is standard about radiator shapes and sizes,” says Martinez. “You have to replace a radiator with one like the part the manufacturer installed, and even within a single year they might change the radiator design. This is particularly a problem with semitrucks,” he adds.
According to Martinez, most service garages do not repair radiators—they offer the customer a new one if the right model is available, or they ask a radiator shop to fix it or supply an aftermarket one (new, but from a different manufacturer). Sometimes repairing a damaged radiator is the only option.
A satisfied Laramie customer, Scott Morton, says, “Since the antique cars I deal with vary from about 40 to 95 years old, new radiators are impossible to find, and ones from a salvage yard, if they can be located, are no better than the originals. Laramie Radiator Works is a lifesaver for these projects.”
With 75 years of business in Laramie, they must be doing something right.
By Judy Knight
Caption: Arvin Martinez with the “Radiator Man” he constructed as a 12-year-old, learning soldering techniques. Martinez owns Laramie Radiator Works, a Laramie business for 75 years.
Source: Judy Knight photo