May 19, 2010
Just finished adding over 200 vintage ADs, articles, and some brochures for several different companies (too many to name here). During this time I have acquire some very nice brochures and additional ADs. Most notable is an ORIGINAL 1916 WARNER TRAILER COMPANY brochure for their Prairie Schooner. This is only the second brochure I have found from the original year of mass production, 1916. Even more importantly is that Warner Trailer had manufacturing facilities already setup by late 1915 to manufacture standard auto trailers and heavy-duty work trailers. A.P. Warner had designed and built a revolutionary auto trailer for the time, thus making him one of the industry leaders. More coming!!!
May 6, 2010
Added: Advertisements for Cox, Sorlien, Reliart, Camel MFG, 4 articles for 1916 - 1925, EZ Kamper, Steury, Sherwood, Venture, and some others. I still have over 200 vintage advertisements and articles that I am curently preparing to deploy to the website. Included are ADs for well known companies such as Apache, Nimrod, and Heilite as well as several smaller regional manufacturers not currently on the website. In addition to this I have several company profiles coming together, especially for the 1960-1979 category.
April 26, 2010
Added a nice color 1971 brochure for Skamper, two vintage Zagelmeyer photos showing the camper with its owners, advertisements for Bethany - Nimrod - Wayfarer, and a new manufacturer from 1953 - Sportrailer Mfg. Co. (they manufactured an aluminum trailer around the same time Heilite did). And still more coming!
April 23, 2010
Added: Puma by Ski Tow 1965 brochure, Jayco 1972 brochure, 16 Photos of an original Warner Trailer and 2 Advertisements from 1946 and 1947 for Higgins Trailer. Much more coming!
April 22, 2010
A great find! I just added the oldest advertisement I have found so far for the Apache camping trailer. It is from July 25, 1957, early in Apache's first official year of production. A Sports and Marine store ran the ad in a local newspaper in Owosso, Michigan, near Lapeer.
Another great find, Rex Mfg. Co. from the 1930's. At the moment I only have two brochures, one for camping trailers and one for the manufacturing in general. I've added only the relevant pages of each. Limited company profile coming next.
And to finish out the day's work I just added another company from the early years, F.P. Lyons Iron Works. This company has proved quite elusive. I had photos of a restored trailer but no facts. Later I found a patent, (much by chance) with an inventor's name, but no manufacturer. Eventually I was able to tie the inventor's name to his company in his own home town with the help of the 1918 Bureau of Labor report. Mystery solved!
April 20, 2010
Just uploaded new material for Ward Manufacturing - Wayfarer. Added two nice brochures for 1965 and 1967. I split apart Wayfarer from Nimrod, giving them each their own section. I also wrote up the known company division history. Still working on the Apache known history summary. I have a lot of new material for several companies including some previously unknown companies. I will be deploying this material slowly over the next few days/weeks. Keep checking back!
April 19, 2010
It's been awhile since I've uploaded any material to this website, but that doesn't mean nothing has been done. I've been doing research during this time and have been preparing documents for the website which is very time-consuming. I've just added several new documents for the Vesely Manufacturing Company (Apache) and am currently rewriting their company profile. It was one of the largest, and well known, companies so there is a lot of material for this company. As time moves on there will be even more. I have discovered two new companies/trailers from the early years, I'll be adding them soon. The early years are exciting finds for me. And, as always, please donate any brochures you might have. You can simply scan and send me a copy and keep the original yourself.
January 10, 2010
I found the source of the Safari / Firefox compatibility issue. It was a bit of incomplete code, whereas IE did not require the code to be complete to be XHTML 4.01 loose transitional Safari and Firefox do. So I am in the process of fixing it. As of the date of this post I have completed section 1900-1945. But..... I have a long ways to go. I am also in the process of cleaning up the webpages and making them look a bit more professional as well. I still have a bit more material almost ready to add. Of course I keep finding more, as I do I'll keep posting it! (Section 1946-1959 now updated as well.........)
January 4, 2010
As of the date of this entry I have just completed preparing 110 pages of material to add to this website. Included will be some very nice brochures and advertisements, many for well known manufacturers like Chenango, Apache, Nimrod, and Heilite. It will be one of my largest deployments yet, and will require several days/weeks to complete. Much of the material comes from the early 1960's and is in color.
January 4, 2010
This website was established on January 19, 2009. Throughout 2009 most effort was put into further research and much document scanning, document preparation, and document deployment. Just getting one single manufacturer brochure or advertisement deployed to the website is very time-consuming, and this website has hundreds. Because almost all effort was placed on website content the quality of the presentation has been lacking. To those of you who are using Safari my apologies. Some of this website's coding is incompatible with the Safari browser. I will strive to fix that in 2010 along with other presentation issues encountered.