Out on the prairie

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Allan]

Can anyone imagine stopping on a bridge to repair a puncture today, not just a demountable spare rim and tyre, but a tyre removal, tube patch/replacement and then a refit, and an extended pumping job.

Allan from down under.

[Rich Eagle]

WOW! Simply wonderful.
Thanks again.
Rich

[Old school]

Thanks for the great images. I would like to have been alive back then except for the lack of antibiotics and modern dentistry ... ouch !

[Tom VanMeeteren]

Great photos Tom, keep em coming. Thanks for the effort

[TWrenn]

Can anyone imagine stopping on a bridge to repair a puncture today, not just a demountable spare rim and tyre, but a tyre removal, tube patch/replacement and then a refit, and an extended pumping job.

Allan from down under.

NOPE!!

[TWrenn]

Great photos Tom, keep em coming. Thanks for the effort

Ditto! The '14 in front of the General Store has what looks like a tire over the tire on the left front.
Quite a few nice '13s in the bunch, and some of those cars sure look worse for the wear!

As for wanting to live back in those times...for me...naahhhh... way too hard of a life for sure. Yeh, we're soft,
but not necessarily that soft, we have our own hardships, just in different manners. And seemingly getting worse.
But I wouldn't want to go back in time.

Great photos Tom, like to know how and where in the world you're finding them!!

[Dropacent]

Amazing photos, Tom. Glass plate photos, correct? All these posts should be archived here somewhere.

[John Warren]

That was my first thought Allan, Must be another bridge right? Mud bogging has been around a long time. Maybe the guys repairing the tire had the same conditions? The roadster setting between the two touring cars, you sure can see how much narrower the top is. Can't imagine that many cars parked in one spot. I wonder what was going on, Ball game? Great bunch of photos Tom, thanks for sharing.

[Kajtek1]

I think the bridge was the only area where you could work on the car without smearing everything in mud.
As for going back to those times, I grew up in times with no TV and no internet, but don't think I would part with my android now.

[Norman Kling]

Interesting. My first memories took place in the late 1930's. By then the "New"cars had a very different look from the old cars. There were still many Model T's and other older cars running around. You would even see a few horse pulled wagons. The large city downtown areas looked very much the same as the ones in these pictures except there were some newer cars parked. Because of the depression followed by the war, there were many older cars still on the road until about the late 1940's.
That large parking lot reminds me of a time when Dolores and I flew out to Tennessee and rented a car. One evening we went to see Dolly Parton at the Grand Ol Opry. After the show we went out to the parking lot and didn't remember what our car looked like. So we waited till the lot was almost empty before we found it! I can imagine how hard it would have been to find your car in that crowd.
There are still some places like that where the car stopped on the bridge to change a tire. There is a causeway between Vallejo and San Rafael with many commuters on it every morning and evening. Most of it is only one lane in either direction. People take that route to avoid the tolls on the bridges across the bay. If someone breaks down or has an accident it is jammed for hours because it is impossible to get emergency vehicles to the location until the other vehicles leave the area.
Along the old Rte 66 in southeastern California and Arizona there are still some towns which look like the country towns pictured. It is an interesting place to tour with Model T's.
Norm

[John Warren]

Dang Norm, you must almost as old as dirt, Thanks for sharing. jw

[Rich Eagle]

[Steve Jelf]

Glass plate photos, correct?

Some may be, but by the time these pictures were taken most amateur photography was on film. Some were taken with cheap fixed-focus box cameras. The sharper/higher resolution photos mostly come from folding/focusing cameras. The Raccoon Plaster photo was taken with a focusing camera, as was the last one of a family in a touring.

In the Anheuser-Busch picture what is the large car on the right?

I don't know that I'd want to live permanently in the Model T era, but I would sure like to go back and visit. I would love to meet my grandfather, who died the month before I was born. Older cousins told me that in a family gathering with several conversations going on he would start telling somebody about pioneer days when he was a boy and the whole room would get quiet as everybody listened.

Dang Norm, you must almost as old as dirt...

I am as old as dirt. Norm is a few years older.

[Dave1]

Great pictures !!

[Michael Peternell]

I'm just guessing but the boys in picture 19 might be loaded with a few trying to look sober!

[Rich Eagle]

I believe you are right Michael. Each is handling it in his own way.

[kmatt2]

In the third picture from the bottom, the one with the Ford Cars sign on the shed, check out the replacement drivers, side light, on the late teens Ford. It looks like a small gas spot light with a small Prestolite tank on the running board.

[Aussie16]

Absolutely fabulous pictures. thanks for sharing them.
I was particularly captivated by 3 of them.
the early salesman runabout, possibly 1910/
the Raccoon sales runabout. I was wondering what they were selling. Thanks Rich for the explanation
the paddock full of literally hundreds of fords and other autos. Imagine trying to find your black t in that lot!

[Angmar]

Very interesting pictures. Wonder if all of these photos could be put into book form. So many have been posted over the years. I certainly would buy one.