MTFCA Forum

Once again great pictures from the past. I often wonder when looking at pictures of the campers and with all the equipment they hauled around where the heck did the people sit in the car!

. I bet they crept up a lot of hills in low. Heavy wooden cots, thick duck canvas tarps, cast iron cookware, folding tables and chairs! Hey, once you arrive, life is good!

Here is another angle of the campers in photo 16.
This is an interesting detail showing an electrified tail light and wire wheels.

Mark...re the tail lamp...its interesting how "we" think it's cool for doing the same thing, usually for a brake light, when here way back then they already "one-upped" us on it!

The guy with the shotgun could have been Alex Baldwin.

I don't think today, they would punch a hole in the font for the wires!

Very interesting to see how some Model T's were used for camping and hunting. Now I understand why there are so many running board luggage racks for sale now.

I believe that "auto camping" was very popular at one time. Also, people traveling any distance in many parts of the country had to carry their own supplies, or do without. Accomodations were scarce in many areas.

My paternal grandparents and their 6 children made an epic cross-country trip from Ventura, CA to Paris, ARK in 1923, camping along the way. I had no photos from their trip, so this photo collection helps me to better visualize what it looked like. Thanks for the photos.

My family's trip was made in a 1921 Sheridan. The group consisted of the two adults (my grandparents) and their six children, 3 boys and 3 girls ranging in age from 4 years to 18 years. They had two fly tents, one for each side of the car. Grandma took the three girls on her side and grandpa took the three boys on his side.

My grandfather once told me that they drove off pavement in Castaic, CA, about 20 miles from home. And drove back onto pavement at the same point about a month later on the return trip. All dirt roads everywhere else.

Thet took what he called "the northerly route" because of some sort of flu epidemic rumored to exist along the "southern route". That may have been a vestige of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.

They had no maps as such. The just asked people along the way the best way to "go East". I recall that at some point (in Woming, I believe) they were told that a bridge had been washed out, but that they could make the river crossing on a nearby railroad bridge. He said that they stopped the car at the near end of the bridge, listened carefully for oncoming trains, and then made all haste slowly across the bridge, bumping along on the bare ties.