The hearse was part of a collection the city's Kibbe Museum acquired last year It was originally displayed at the Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield. That museum closed for good in 2009.
The late 1960s Cadillac model was recently damaged when a volunteer backed it into a pole.
Mayor Jim Nightingale says the hearse was in storage. It was being moved to get access to a horse-drawn hearse when a volunteer backed it into a pole.
He says,”We don't have a place to store it. It's just excess so the Kibbe board decided they'd sell it and they got a good price out of it.”
A car collector offered $5,000 for the hearse in its current state. The city quickly approved the offer.
Nightingale says the sale saved the city the cost of the body repairs. He says the city didn't have insurance on the vehicle. The repairs would cost about $1,500.