The History of Marketplace Chevrolet A Century on Polk Street On a hot afternoon in 1920, a small crowd gathered near the Kansas City Southern tracks in Mansfield to stare at something new: a glass-fronted garage with a hand-painted sign promising Stanley Steamer, Oldsmobile, and Chevrolet. The place was called Mansfield Auto Company, and inside that tin-sheathed building a salesman was practicing words that would soon become second nature to an entire town-starter, carburetor, closed-body comfort. By 1925, the Model T era was fading, and Mansfield wanted a showroom that matched the times.
The business-now Mansfield Chevrolet Company, Inc.-built a 28×70-foot display room near the railroad. Newspaper men covered its grand opening like a civic parade: lights bouncing off chrome, the scent of new varnish in the air, a future arriving on four balloon tires.
Not long after, the name changed again-this time to the one that would anchor the store for half a century: Lowrey Motor Co., Inc. Its steward was John W. Lowrey Sr., born in 1876, a man whose life spanned the journey from horse-drawn wagons to modern motoring. John Sr. led through those fragile early decades when a "new car" could still arrive crated on a railcar. He set the family's rhythm: sell square, service honestly, and make sure folks left with a handshake worth keeping.
The cars changed, too. Chevrolet's first widely affordable six-cylinder models rolled out, with Shreveport ads chanting the same chorus: "Everybody's Six." Prices looked like misprints even then-$465 for a Roadster! In 1931, a 1½-ton Chevrolet truck started at $520. For the price of a mule and a little nerve, a man could buy himself a future. By the 1920s, John's sons Jack and Bob Lowrey were working at his side. Bob would later become dealer for the family's store in Many, while Jack took the reins in Mansfield.
Jack's son, Bill Lowrey III, carried the torch forward, eventually opening his own dealership-Bill Lowrey Motors in Natchitoches-before returning home to serve as general manager in Mansfield. Like his father and grandfather, Bill believed a business owed something back to the community that kept its doors open.
The heart of Lowrey's was never just the sales floor. Out back, men in aprons straightened fenders, learned to lead and sand, to paint until the curves shone again. By the mid-1930s, the Shreveport Journal called Lowrey Motor Co. a "body-repairing firm specialty." That meant a farmer could bring in a truck battered from a week's work and drive it home straight enough to take his wife to church on Sunday. Repairs became relationships, handshakes became habits, and families kept coming back-generation after generation.
If you rummage through the drawers we've saved all these years, you'll still find good-luck penny tokens stamped LOWREY MOTOR CO., MANSFIELD, LOUISIANA. Aluminum around the outside, a wheat-back cent pressed in the middle, and a promise along the rim: KEEP ME AND YOU WILL HAVE GOOD LUCK. Kids carried them to school like talismans; some men carried them into marriage proposals tucked in their pockets. The war years brought rationed rubber and tightened belts; the postwar years let the country breathe again.
New Chevrolets arrived with heaters that finally worked and wipers that didn't smear. By the 1960s, teenagers pressed their faces to the showroom glass, staring at 442s and shiny Impalas, swearing they could hear the camshafts ticking. A 1968 full-page ad for Oldsmobile's "youngmobiles" carried the Lowrey name in bold type. To buy from Lowrey was to tie your name to half the town. The 1970s stretched the family further, with stores in Many and Natchitoches. A 1977 clipping showed Bob Lowrey honored nationally with a Chevrolet performance award. Through it all, the service desks never seemed to empty-service writers lived with a pen tucked behind one ear, surrounded by drawers of dog-eared registration slips. Then, about thirty-five years ago, the keys passed again.
James Lynch took the chair as dealer principal, bringing with him the experience of running Mansfield's Ford dealership before selling his interest there and committing fully to General Motors. James later rose to serve as Chairman of the Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association, but he never lost sight of a simple creed: the most modern thing a dealer could do was something very old-keep your word. In the early 1990s, James welcomed John Adams into ownership, deepening the bench. "We are not absentee owners," James would say. "Walk in our offices anytime." John's roots in the car business ran deep-his father was a car man before him-and John rose from sales to team leader, sales manager, and then general manager. For more than three decades, John has been a cornerstone of the dealership's success. His calm, steady leadership and encyclopedic knowledge of both the product and the people behind it have earned him respect across generations of employees and customers alike.
He's guided countless salespeople into long careers, championed integrity over flash, and kept the focus where it's always belonged-on relationships built one handshake at a time. Even today, he remains active in daily operations and continues to mentor the next generation of Marketplace leaders, carrying forward the same principles that first drew him into the business: honesty, loyalty, and genuine care for the customer.
By 2007, James's son, Daryl Lynch, was sweeping into the story. He started part-time while in school-washing cars, changing oil, and working in the shop-learning every corner of the dealership before ever taking a desk. Over the years, he advanced through nearly every role: service advisor, service manager, fixed operations director, and eventually dealer principal and owner. A graduate of both college and the National Automobile Dealer's Academy, Daryl brought with him a rare combination of hands-on experience and formal education in dealership operations. Under Daryl's leadership, Marketplace Chevrolet entered a new era of innovation and growth. He modernized operations, expanded the dealership's digital presence, and led the design and construction of its new Stonewall campus-a 25,000-square-foot facility that became the anchor of a growing multi-location network. Known for his eye for detail and relentless drive for improvement, Daryl helped shape Marketplace into one of North Louisiana's most trusted and recognizable automotive names. Yet despite the growth, he's kept the same small-town values that built the business in the first place-knowing customers by name, celebrating employees like family, and keeping the dealership deeply rooted in the community it serves.
In 2015, after ninety years of growth in DeSoto Parish, the dealership earned additional market coverage into Red River Parish. To better serve both, it moved to Stonewall, LA, building that new 25,000-square-foot facility. Mansfield Auto World became Marketplace Chevrolet, now anchored along the interstate-connecting east and west, and bringing the dealership within easier reach of its expanding market. Today, the sign reads Marketplace Chevrolet. Daryl Lynch serves as Dealer Principal and Owner, but the leadership remains shared-John Adams is still here, carrying forward the tradition side by side. Together with more than seventy-five teammates, they keep alive the core values set in motion a century ago: honesty, fairness, hard work, and care for the people who walk through the door. This isn't a corporate chain. It never has been. It is a locally owned, family-run dealership that has lived in DeSoto Parish for a hundred years. We live here, raise our families here, and have the community to thank for our success. Though James Lynch has retired from the day-to-day bustle of the dealership, his presence remains woven into its foundation.
With more than four decades of automotive experience, he continues to serve as a trusted advisor and owner-the kind of steady voice earned through years of balancing books, mentoring teams, and steering a business through changing times. His insight still shapes decisions at Marketplace Chevy, a quiet reminder that experience doesn't fade-it guides. What makes us proud isn't just awards or ratings, though we've earned our share. It's that our team truly cares-for each other, for our customers, and for doing things the right way. We are blessed with happy customers who give us the chance to earn their trust, and proud to say we have a team of people who want success built on integrity and relationships, not shortcuts. And because a dealership ought to be a good neighbor before it's a good business, Marketplace gives back. Each year it supports more than fifty local organizations-schools and boosters, first responders, veterans groups, churches, chambers, and youth leagues. Every December, the team delivers holiday meals to over twenty-five families and partners with Levi's Toys to brighten the Christmas mornings of children spending the holiday in the hospital.
The only time the store truly grows quiet is when a caravan of SUVs pulls away from the service drive, loaded with boxes and bikes. The numbers in the old ads-the ones that made your grandfather whistle-still humble us. $440 for a half-ton pickup in 1930. $545 for a sedan. Even adjusted for inflation, those numbers don't land close to a modern crossover at $30,000, a half-ton at $40,000, or a full size SUV at $60,000. But that isn't the whole story. Today's cars carry airbags and crumple zones, automated emergency braking and lane-keeping cameras, engines that make more power with less fuel, emissions you can hardly measure. We've gone from crank windows to trucks that can tow a house and keep their lane by themselves. Safety and comfort are written into every weld. And yet, in the ways that matter, little has changed.
A hundred years after that first tin sheathed garage opened its doors, people still walk in with the same hopes: the right payment, a straight deal, a vehicle that will start on a cold morning and bring their family safely home. We keep the same promises, too: sell what you'd sell to your own kin, fix it as if your name were on the repair order, and give back more than you take. If you stand on Polk Street at dusk, when the trains are just a murmur and the cicadas are tuning up, you can almost see it all lined up in your mind: the Mansfield Auto Company sign giving way to Mansfield Chevrolet, the proud Lowrey Motor Co. letters painted by hand, the modern glass of Marketplace Chevrolet catching the last light. Different names, same idea. A century of North Louisiana finding its way forward, one set of keys at a time.
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