This Titanic Survivor's Journey Shaped Iconic El Paso Dealership

When you think of car dealerships in El Paso, names like Charlie Clark, Bravo, Viva, Rudolph are some of the most known. Another name that El Pasoans are very familiar with is the Shamaley name. While the Shamaley dealerships aren't owned by the Shamaley family anymore, there's a very good chance they wouldn't BE in El Paso, Texas if it wasn't for one Titanic survivor that lived in town many years ago.

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Who owned El Paso's Shamaley dealerships in the day?

A man named Lee Shamaley Sr was born in El Paso on May 13, 1920. He would fight in World War II as part of the US Army- Air Force & was honorably discharged in 1945. When he came back, he would continue working with his father in retail & then eventually moving over the automotive business before he would retire at the age of 85. His son, LJ Shamaley, would take over the Shamaley business after his dad retired; he even talked about how in the Doing It...My Way podcast.

And who were the parents of Lee Shamaley Sr? None other than Albert & Adele Shamaley.

Adele Shamaley was indeed a Titanic survivor who lived in El Paso

Yes. Adele Shamaley, whose original name was Adāl Naṣr Allāh, was indeed a survivor from the Titanic disaster in 1912. She would later move to El Paso after meeting & marrying her husband, Albert Ayoub Shamaley, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They moved to El Paso in 1917 and the rest is history. Adele wasn't the only Titanic survivor who lived in El Paso, you can see the others right here.

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Of course there's a chance the dealerships would've still been founded in a different timeline, but it's possible it could've been somewhere or under a new name. What we DO know that if it wasn't for Adele, Albert or Lee Shamaley, the dealerships wouldn't have become such a recognizable name in its home of El Paso.