Robert Thoresen
A most pleasant Friday morning on February 26 found about a dozen members of the Photography Club of Quail Creek at the Franklin Automobile Museum. TripAdvisor ranks the museum number 25 of Things to Do in Tucson. Frank Hubbard (originally from upstate New York), was an old time car restorer in Tucson. He became the authority on Franklin automobiles. He was a friend of Bill Harrah and restored several of Harrah’s Franklins and other cars. When Frank died he set up a foundation to preserve his estate, his car collection and other items. It is located on Frank Hubbard’s original property in midtown Tucson. There have been efforts to move it but as Frank requested, it has stayed here in Tucson with The Franklin Auto Museum maintained by his late son Thomas who reset the Thomas H. Hubbard/H.H. Franklin Foundation. The museum is a means to continue his collection of classic Franklin automobiles and to provide an opportunity to develop a comprehensive Franklin Museum covering all years of the company’s production of automobiles in Syracuse, New York. Automobile production ended during the Depression, but the company continued to produce air cooled engines for airplanes during WWII.
Mr. Hubbard put into trust the following: His entire Franklin Automobile collection and other restored automobiles, an extensive library of Franklin Company research material, his aunt’s collection of Native American artifacts, the historical adobe home and outbuildings and a very generous endowment.
Tom’s intentions were for the trust to preserve and expand the cars, Indian artifacts and facilities to be complementary to the established southwestern site and architecture. See the museum’s website for additional information: http://franklinmuseum.org/.
Club members’ second goal was lunch at the Pastiche Restaurant about one mile to the east off of North Campbell Road, opposite Beyond Bread. TripAdvisor gives Pastiche a rank of number 212 of 1551 restaurants in Tucson (150 notches below Beyond Bread and a very different menu and ambiance). Quoting Always Hungry, who dined there a few days before: “Recommended by our B&B hosts, we visited Pastiche for the first time on Saturday night. Good, busy atmosphere, but cleared out by 9:00 p.m. Delicious food with some unusual menu items; the fried avocado is really good! Friendly service, but bring a jacket as the air conditioning is a little too efficient! I definitely recommend this restaurant.”
The PCQC was formed in 2009 and makes regularly scheduled field trips throughout the year. All Quail Creek residents are invited to the monthly meetings the second Wednesday of the month at the Kino Conference Center, Ocotillo Room at 7:00 p.m. For current events and further details go to the club’s website at http://www.pcqc.org.