INDIANAPOLIS —The Indiana Historical Society is honoring a Muncie-based business for its long history of service. IHS presented its 2016 Centennial Business Award to J.R. Munson Company, Inc.

Founded in October 1916 in Warsaw, Indiana, by Burr and Gael Munson, J.R. Munson Company grew out of the family’s steam-engine threshing machine business. Over the next few years, the Munson family began to focus on automobile service and provided apprenticeships to mechanics in their extended family, which created a wide-reaching family business.

Burr Munson and his five brothers found success as new and pre-owned automobile dealers selling models such as Studebaker, Cadillac, Hudson and Pierce-Arrow. The only major car dealership franchises not owned by the Munson family were for Oldsmobile and Mercury. One hundred years later, the Munson family has owned 32 new car and truck franchises, 10 used car dealerships and sponsored two racecar drivers.

Now owned and operated by Burr’s grandson, C. Andrew Munson, the dealership continues to offer pre-owned cars, service and automotive detailing to Muncie residents. The J.R. Munson Company owes its success to fair and honest business practices that keep customers coming back.

J.R. Munson Company will receive its Centennial Business Award at IHS’s annual Founders Day event, sponsored by Hirtle, Callaghan & Co. The presentation will take place Monday, Dec. 5, at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center in downtown Indianapolis. In addition, J.R. Munson Company will be added to IHS’s Historic Business Register.

In 1992, the trustees and members of IHS founded the Historic Business Register with three goals in mind: to provide special recognition to Indiana companies continually in business for a century or more, to encourage the preservation of historically significant business-related archival materials, and to develop increased awareness of our rich business and industrial heritage among Indiana’s citizens.