It would be difficult to overstate the impact the automobile had on the American farm. Farmers accustomed to leading a relatively isolated existence were suddenly able to have regular contact with the outside world. Instead of relying on horses to haul their products to market, they were able to use cars and trucks to quickly transport their butter, milk, eggs, grain, chickens and other livestock. The automobile changed production methods as well, used for everything from delivering inputs like fertilizer, fuel and feed to harvesting in the field.
In one El Paso Herald story, “Automobile Crowding the Horse Out of Existence” by Frederick J. Haskin, the author described how the automobile had already conquered the city and was “carrying its active warfare to the very citadel of the stronghold of the horse, the farm.” The author spoke with 15 farmers gathered at a local hotel. The year was 1909 and, although this was very early in the automobile’s existence, 12 of the farmers already owned automobiles and were hitching light machinery to them to mow and plow and even using them to herd livestock.
Using an automobile for farm work was made easier by inventions such as the Knickerbocker Forma-Tractor, an attachment for converting a Ford Model T into a tractor. According to a 1918 ad, the Knickerbocker Forma-Tractor would pull two 12-inch bottoms in all soils, would plow four to six acres a day while being operated by “either a boy or a girl,” would disc 12 acres per day in heavy soil and would do the work of three or four horses.
1919 Model T with Knickerbocker Forma-Tractor attachment.
According to a 1935 story in the Muncie Sunday Star titled, “Auto Leads Way in Movement of Modernizing American Farms,” 60 percent of farm families owned at least one automobile by this year, while only 35 percent had electricity and a measly 12 percent had running water. Seen as a necessity rather than a luxury as many railroad spur lines to rural areas were being abandoned, more than 1 million trucks were owned by farmers. The author added this observation:
“It seems more than passing strange that legislators on the one hand will try to aid the farmer through various relief schemes and at the same time favor the placing of higher and higher taxes upon the motor vehicle transportation that the farmer uses.”
We spotted this old brick dealership building in Red Cloud, Nebraska, a town known for being the home of author Willa Cather as well as the inspiration for some of her novels.
The sign is amazing. It is sun bleached and difficult to read, but the vertical letters spell “Studebaker” while the horizontal letters spell “Killough Motor Co.”
I searched old newspapers in order to date this sign. The only reference I was able to find to this particular dealership, Killough Motors, was at the bottom of this 1940 advertisement:
And yes, that’s a Chevy, not a Studebaker, sitting in the front window, but what a great place to park and display your vintage cars!
This is our ’48 Dodge sitting in front of a little stucco house we are renovating. The structure started life as a barn in 1918 (we found barn siding under the wall in the dining room!) and was converted to a house in 1948. The house and car look good together, don’t they?
It seems we have been finding Studebaker trucks everywhere we look lately, and here is yet another, albeit not in very prime condition. This is one of the 2R Series trucks, produced from 1949-1953, and they were a wonderful post-war success for Studebaker. They are great-looking trucks when they are complete and are always popular at car shows.
We do have a nice grille for one of these Studebakers in our inventory, so feel free to contact us if you are in the market.
I have a real weakness for old dealership buildings, and we spotted this one the other day in a small town called Osceola, Nebraska. Notice that the building next to it is the American Legion with Old Glory flying out front. If you were to remove the modern vehicles from the vicinity of this well-kept block structure and replace them with a few classics, you would think you were back in the fifties.
I used some pictures from the 1922 Rickenbacker sales brochure in my last post about the Rickenbacker radiator badge, and I thought I would go ahead and post the remaining pages for anyone interested:
This rare radiator badge is a perfect topic for Independence Day as it features Uncle Sam’s hat, complete with stars and stripes in red, white and blue. This particular badge would have graced the front of an automobile called the Rickenbacker which was manufactured from 1921-1926 and was named for a courageous American war hero named Captain Eddie Rickenbacker.
Rickenbacker, known as the “Ace of Aces”, was a World War I pilot who flew 300 combat hours, more than any other American, at a time when those early planes were cobbled-together and highly combustible. He shot 26 enemy aircraft out of the sky and earned the Medal of Honor when he encountered seven German planes while by himself and, incredibly, shot down two of them before streaking away.
Before the war, Rickenbacker had found success as a professional race car driver when the cars racing around the track bore names like Stutz and Duesenberg and death was a common occurrence. A 1914 LA Times story, “All the Dope on the Drivers,” contained the following description of Rickenbacker (note that he had not yet changed the “h” to a “k” to make it sound less Germanic):
The same story was illustrated with this photo:
The caption reads, “This queer device was invented by Eddie Rickenbacher especially for the Corona race. The continuous curve to the course prevents slowing down and conversation between driver and mechanic so Eddie had this rig made to order. It has a tube running from each man’s mouth to the other’s ear. The whole thing is head gear, goggles, face mask and speaking tube in one.”
After the war Rickenbacker became involved in a number of endeavors including the automobile company. These pictures of the Rickenbacker automobile appeared in the 1922 sales brochure:
The red, white and blue radiator badge that was chosen to represent the automobile was based upon the insignia used by Rickenbacker’s squadron during the war. In this photo of Captain Rickenbacker, you can clearly see the hat-in-the-ring insignia painted on the fuselage:
“Eddie Rickenbacker and his plane. 94th Aero Squadron, near Rembercourt, Meurthe et Moselle, France. Spad XIII.” October 18, 1918. III-SC-50126. National Archives Identifier: 86706268.
I recently ran across a 1918 story in the Fort Wayne Sentinel, titled “Hat-in-the-Ring is the Emblem of the Gimpers,” in which Captain Rickenbacker explained the origination of the insignia:
“Every man has a picture of a hat in a ring on his machine. That means he is ready to fight at any time, whether he wants to or not. The squadron is sometimes known as the hat-in-the-ring squadron, but among ourselves its gimpers. We adopted the hat-in-the-ring as our emblem back in our training days. Then it was our hope to be the first fighting squadron to get to the front.”
“Our commanding officer, who had been with the French, used to have a hat as the emblem on his machine. Someone suggested that we take the hat, put a ring around it, carrying out the idea of ex-President Roosevelt’s famous statement that we were ready to fight anytime. ”
“The hat we had in mind then was a derby and someone suggested when we were discussing the emblem that it be made Uncle Sam’s hat, with stars and stripes on it. The idea was a gimper itself and we soon designed an Uncle Sam’s hat in a ring of red, white and blue, on each machine.”
“Doug Campbell added the finishing touch to the hat-in-the-ring emblem when he got his fifth hun and became the first all-American trained ace. Somewhere he scared up a paint brush and painted a little black cross in the ring around the hat for each German he had brought down. They were regular German crosses, just like you see on German planes before you let them have it. “
“You want to look at Doug’s collection of crosses. He started them in one end of the ring and made them real small. There are now seven of them in the ring but they stretch barely a quarter of the way across the ring. That is Doug’s quiet way of showing his confidence in getting a lot of boches before the war is over. “
I have frequently wondered about this particular radiator badge and am delighted to hear the backstory told in Captain Rickenbacker’s own words. I did need a little help with the lingo, however. According to Dictionary.com, “boche” is a contemptuous term for a German, especially a WW2 German soldier, and according to author John F. Ross, a “gimper” is “a bird who will stick by you through anything” and who does everything “just a little better than he has to.” Ross’s book is called Enduring Courage: Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed, and it is a gripping read. The last chapter of the book describes the 1942 plane crash in which Rickenbacker, on his way to deliver a message to General MacArthur, went down in the South Pacific with seven other men. They survived on rafts for 22 days, and it was Rickenbacker who took charge and kept all but one alive. Not at all surprising as Captain Rickenbacker was a born leader with an iron will who was always ready to throw his hat into the ring.
“Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, American Ace, in aeroplane. France. Spad XIII.” 1918. III-SC-50127. National Archives Identifier: 86706270.
The cars of the 1950s were long, wide, covered in chrome and topped off with an exotic hood ornament. It was the golden era of colossal hood ornaments, but the largest of the large has to be those found on the 1955-56 Dodges. The one pictured above is off a ’56, and here it is sitting in front of an average Border Collie for a size comparison:
The doggie model is my lovely Lily (and her size is the ONLY thing about her that is average). The hood ornament measures an exceptional 36 inches in width, big even by the standards of the Fifties. Here is a ’55 Dodge with a slightly different but equally imposing front end:
The hood ornament wasn’t the only impressive aspect of these Dodges; they were also powered by hemi engines. The hemi had debuted a few years earlier with the 1951 Chrysler Firepower engine, and for both the ’55 and ’56 Dodge, the Super Powered Super Red Ram V8 engine was available as optional equipment on all V8 models. It was a 315ci engine (3.63 bore and 3.80 stroke) and the “special power equipment” included single or dual 4-barrel carbs and dual exhaust. I think the hood ornament resembles a hammerhead shark, and that is probably no coincidence because that hemi would eat your lunch.
FINALLY, the auctions are starting back up and we went to a great one last weekend. On the auction block was a veritable history of Chevrolet trucks:
193719381939
The bidding was robust since it was a large crowd of people that have apparently been suffering from the twin maladies of cabin fever and pockets that money is burning a hole through. We did come away with some good stuff, however, including a couple of truck radios. This one is Model 986067, correct for a 1947-1950 Chevy Truck:
It was an amazing find, complete with tags and knobs and all the stuff that is usually missing. Don’t ask though, this one is already spoken for. We also bought this Model 986443 which would have been original to a 1951-1953 truck. It is also very complete:
I think my favorite purchase of the day was this great dash-mounted fan. It is a Wizard with a Rex motor. Best of all, we bench-tested it and it still works. It has loads of patina and I love its vintage look!
