Historical News Items

1930s Ida Lupino relaxes in her trailer; W.C. Fields pride and joy trailerToday vintage trailer camping fashion is very casual and depends when and where you are camping or rallying. Some rallies even have themes and costumes are worn. Other outings are just camping and visiting. If you look at the pictures below, early camping was quite fashionable. This gallery of fashion may be expanded over ti...

1948 Horner & Thatcher Trailer Boat Prototype & 1936 Ford Pickup TruckBuilt by Horner & Thatcher Trailer Service [The text of this article appeared in the Vintage Campers Trailers Magazine, Issue No.9; May/June 2020, which can be found by going to vintagecampertrailers.com; photos may differ]. Vintage Camper Trailers May/June 2020, Issue 49 How do you write an appreciation letter to an...

I always wanted to visit the Jack Sisemore RV Museum in Amarillo, Texas -- for quite a few years anyway. We road tripped to Kansas to pick up a part for our 1936 Ford pickup truck. Chuck surprised me with a side trip to the museum on our return home. Yes! it fulfilled my expectations and more . . . situated inside Jack's RV dealership, TRAVELAND. This small but efficiently utilized space held a we...

Sunset Magazine, February 1937 Issue Vintage trailer advertisements and article:               ...

------100s OF POPULAR, RARE, AND UNIQUE TRAILERS IDENTIFIED------ Thompson, Bob & Jameson, Carl (2019). THE Illustrated Field Guide to VINTAGE TRAILERS. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith Publishing. A vintage trailer owner must have! Okay, I’m going to make this review brief (or maybe not); because this book is the most inclusive and comprehensive reference publication on vintage trailers to this date...

TRAILER WAYS & DAZE! Stop-Look-Laugh Cartoons Drawn by Hank Roesler Copyright by Hank Roesler 1955 Published by Trail-R-Club of America America's largest Publisher of books pertaining to trailers and mobile home living. This book is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of happy trailer travelers and mobile home owners. Because of the wonderful freedom from care this new way of life brings, m...

This article appeared in the very first issue of the Trailer Topics Magazine in May of 1937, page 8. The Original Trailer By ROBERT E. CALLAHAN National authority on the American Indian; author of “Daughter of Ramona”, “Heart of an Indian”, producer of the “Santa Fe Trail” and “Lone Indian” Broadcasts, and builder of Mission Village Tourist and Trailer Court, Los Angeles. The Travois was the orig...

These cartoons appeared in various trailer magazines and publications before they were vintage...     With this cartoon Trailer Travel [March 1937] introduced... "the first of a series depicting the humorous side of trailer life. Drawn by Edwin Hunter, the cartoons presented the wizward of trailerdom, a man who has a solution to every trailer problem. Featured with this genius of the rolling home ...

Many trailerites, like ourselves, take pride and enjoyment displaying and sharing our vintage trailers at events and rallies or while just camping with friends. Many of us have hobbies and collections representing vintage trailer memorabilia that we also share on certain occasions. Here's an excerpt from the trailer book, Galloping Bungalows, discussing the early interest in trailers (before they ...

Tales Along EL CAMINO SIERRA by David & Gayle Woodruff Copyright 2017 El Camino Sierra Publishing We often travel north on US 395 by truck and vintage trailer; because it is so historical, beautiful and captures our imaginations. This past summer, we were camped with our 1950 Westcraft vintage trailer at Lee Vining with our friends in their large motorhomes (usually there are a couple more vin...

[We enjoy collecting ephemera when it involves the history of trailers and early trailer houses (motorhomes). We’ve had this little pamphlet for a number of years. It truly describes what a road trip was about when traveling in a recreational vehicle of its time.  I’ve copied the poem from the brochure word for word. Word usage, punctuation and spelling have not been changed in remembering and res...

IS THIS 1936 AIRSTREAM SILVER CLOUD (Wooden) THE OLDEST AIRSTREAM FACTORY-PRODUCED TRAILER STILL IN EXISTENCE? (Portions of this article appeared in the January-February 2017 of the Vintage Camper Trailers Magazine. Volume 6, Number 1, Issue 29 and can be acquired by going to www.vintagecampertrailers.com...) (Go to https://www.pinkflamingorvradio.com/march-2017.html for a radio broadcast and slid...

Home-A-Long Trailer History* [History provided and shared by Susan Webster as told to Toni Miltenberger] There are times when the most amazing connections happen when you least expect them. The Buellton Bash Vintage Trailer Rally 2016 had ended, we had driven away to go home and stopped to see someone’s "new" vintage trailer they had recently acquired -- but, while passing through Buellton on the ...

Trailer Coach Specifications for 1949 TRAILER TOPICS MAGAZINE, February 1949 According to the magazine, all trailer coach manufacturers in 1949 were invited to send their specifications in to TRAILER TOPICS. All those sent in were listed. In addition to the location (address) of manufacture, just basic specifications were included that would enable one to compare values and prices. Some trailers w...

The Silver Vagabond    It’s not a bit imposing and not so very fine, It’s sort of like a mushroom, this rolling home of mine. It never cares to settle down; it seems to want to roam, There is dust from forty-seven states encrusted on its dome. It’s stood the test of droughts, and floods and winds have lashed in vain, While Old Jack Frost, in playful mood, has etched each window pane. It’s stood in...

America’s World Traveler AIRSTREAM, Patrick R. Foster, Quarto Publishing Group, USA, Inc. Hardcover, 192 pages MSRP: $45 [on Amazon only $30.28 when posted] Book available at QuartoKnows.com and anywhere fine books are sold. Before you begin to read this, you need to know that, yes — overall, I would recommend this book to those that already own or are interested in vintage or newer Airstreams. I...

Chapman University is located at 1 University Dr, Orange, CA 92866 The following information, in italics, is taken from https://blogs.chapman.edu/huell-howser-archives/ The joy that the late TV legend Huell Howser shared with generations of Californians infuses a new permanent exhibit, sponsored by the Automobile Club of Southern California, housed in Chapman University’s Leatherby Libraries. The...

Here are a few selected trailer manufacturing advertisements from the May 1954 issue of Trailer Life Magazine. Trailer Life, May 1954, Vol. 14, No. 5 ~ The original painting along with the magazine hangs in our family room. About the cover (quote): The lure of the mobile home is travel and right now the vacation trailer market is booming. The reason is two-fold but simple. We all have the gypsy...

1936 - 1951Trailer Ads . . . Sampling 1936 Kozy Coach * Trailer Travel Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 1936 (1st issue) 1937 Indian * Trailer Travel Magazine, January 1937 1937 Schult * Trailer Travel Magazine, September 1937     1938 Zimair            1938 ElcarTrailer Travel Magazine, June 1938  1938 Travelo                         1938 U.S. Club CarTrailer Travel Magazine, June 19381939 Covered Wagon * Tr...

    NEWS-HERALD Newspaper Article Lake Havasu City, Arizona Saturday, February 6, 2016 Edition Overview page: The gracious and cheerful hosts: Cherri & Mike with their 1952 Viking Chris & Mike in their 1972 Argosy 20' Sharon & Ron in their 1967 Fleetcraft Ken with his 1935 Masterbilt & 1936 Buick   (For more vintage trailer pictures at Windsor Beach, go to the gallery's 2nd Time ...

    1947 Drexler trailer coach advertisement ~ Trailer Travel Magazine, November 1947 ...

Selected excerpts (1921 - 1988) from Galloping Bungalowsby David A. Thornburg, Shoestring Press Inc., Connecticut, 1991: “Indeed motor-camping is the only way in which many people can afford to travel at all.” —Elon Jessup, The Motor Camping Book, 1921 “A census last Sunday on the Daniel Webster Highway of Laconia [New Hampshire] disclosed that 20 per cent of passenger automobiles, exclusive of lo...

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  “In Nomad’s Land … When Half the Nation Lives In Trailers” [copyright 1936 by the Chicago Tribune] ...

  To view the plan page larger click on:        popularsciencemotorcycletrailerplans   ...

Check out this old news story from 1946. "...let's examine the record of the AUTOMOBILE AND TRAILER TRAVEL. The opening of 1946 found our printers strike-bound, resulting in a very trying time for ourselves..." Download the Article ...

Trailerites love to tell "war" stores about how we acquired our rigs. Like the '53 Airfloat that we pulled out of the sand in the California Desert, the '47 Westcraft that was filled with engine blocks and dead mice, of the '37 Hayes that was used as a chicken coop for the last four decades. Read the Full Article  ...

1937 Fortune Magazine (Selected painting by J.W. Golinkin from “Fortune” Magazine, March 1937) With so many different kinds of trailers on the market, it is obviously impossible to say anything about one trailer that would be true about all, except that a trailer is a more or less habitable flat mounted on two, three, or four wheels. No flat rule can be laid down as to price and quality. Cabin len...

One day while scouring ebay for vintage trailer goodies, Chuck Miltenberger found an ad for a trailer he wasn't really interested in, but he noticed the front end of another trailer poking out from behind a barn. Chuck knew it was a 1950 Westcraft Coronado Pullman and he wanted it. He wrote to the seller and asked if it was for sale and got the usual answer we so often hear: "No way; I'm gonna res...