Crook Motor Company began in 1945 as a father-son enterprise in Albemarle, North Carolina. The business started out as a two-bay repair shop with an adjoining grocery store and gasoline pumps. The inventory consisted of six to twelve used cars. Over the next 15 years, C.B. Crook and his father began selling pickup trucks, farm dump trucks and a few cars. They also began purchasing used state highway hydraulic dump hoists. Not long after, Crook Motor Company started building new platform flat bodies with connected hydraulic hoists to sell to farm customers. This was the mainstay of the business for around 20 years.
