Northern Tire

Our History

    My grandfather, Roland LaPerle, purchased a farm on Hall Stream Road in Beecher Falls, Vermont in May of 1943.  On July 1, 1943 he married my grandmother, Leona (Brown) LaPerle.  During the WWII he had made a living hiring out his farm tractor and used that money to buy the farm.  After a couple years of farming he traded his tractor with Carl Gray for a milk route and sold the farm.  In 1947 he sold his milk route and in July bought Jim Martin's gas station in West Stewartstown at the current location of Marquis Hardware.  One month later his appendix burst and was hospitalized.  He recovered and the business flourished by selling farm machinery, chainsaws, appliances, TV antennas and tires.  At one time there were 13 people working at that location.  In 1951 he purchased the building next door for storage.  In November of '52 a fire which started on the 3rd floor completely destroyed the building.  Between the building and contents there they lost $90,000 and only had insurance for $7,000.  Within 2 days local residents had helped clean up everything.  Someone even gave them a garage which was hauled in and soon they were back in business.

     The Catholic Church built a new church and in 1957 my grandparents bought the old building and converted it into an apartment building.  In 1959 or 1960 they sold the business to  J.P. Couture and moved into one the new apartments in Colebrook.  

    In 1961 Community Oil paid Roland to open a gas station at the current location of Ducret's Sporting Goods on Main Street in Colebrook.  This location was dedicated to selling gas and tires.  In 1962 he added onto the garage and began retreading tires.  My father Dennis and his brother Donnie worked there retreading tires.  In 1967 Roland bought 25 acres in Columbia just south of Colebrook.  He built a larger retread shop and warehouse.  They purchased a modular home on the site in 1970 built a much larger garage.  'Rollie's Care Care' had 3 service bays and a drive thru car wash.  They began doing automotive repair, sold garden tractors, snowmobiles and mobile homes.  

    In 1980 my father, Dennis, bought the retread shop and worked out of that location until 1987.  That is when we moved to our current location on North Main Street in Colebrook.  This 6000 square foot building had 1 service bay and lots of storage space. When I graduated from high school in 1993 I converted the business to computer and that following winter took an auto repair class at Berlin Tech.  In 1998 we purchased the piece of land adjacent to us and added on 2 bays to our shop and also acquired a 5000 square foot warehouse.  On January 1, 1999 I officially took over as owner of Northern Tire. In the summer of 2001 we added on 3 more service bays.    

    I wish to say Thank You to all our loyal customers, Brian LaPerle