40s Traveleer Vintage Trailer

I am a trailerholic with a disease called aluminitus.  Every trailer I bring home, I swear is going to be my last but I am a weak-minded soul.  I saw a trailer on craigslist about 30 minutes away that caught my interest but it had already been on the market a week by the time I called.  It appeared to be an early 50s, canned ham shaped, tandem axel trailer with 2 doors.  There were no inside pictures but the skin looked fairly decent (at least from the only side they took a picture of) but the picture also showed all this junk around it and the ad said, “great for farm or storage” (usually that's my first clue that it’s shredded inside).  Because of the fact that no one had bought it yet after a week and they were only asking $200., I didn’t have much expectations but for $200, what have I got to loose to go take a look.  As soon as I took two steps inside, I said, "I'll take it!" (full price too).

Here are some pictures of my $200. trailer. I love it!

It does have dry rot under the front window and along one of the back corners of the bedroom.  Also, I will need to replace one ceiling panel around the front roof vent and of course re-place any rotten framing in those areas too.  Other than that it is in great condition.  It has a separate bedroom and all of this wonderful birch cabinetry.  It is in original unmolested condition and nothing appears to be missing down to the built in refrigerator, Dixie stove and Panel Ray cylinder style heater.  It has an original shower but NO TOILET?  Go figure.

 

 

I bought it from this 70 year old man who has lived on the property all his life.  It belonged to his grandmother who purchased it in 1951 to use at their house whenever she came to visit (and he thinks it was used when she bought it).  It had been parked next to a big fence and has not moved since 1951.  When she passed away, it was used occasionally for temporary house guests. In the meantime, they build a shop directly in front of it and a huge oak tree has grown on the other side.  Now comes the dilemma… how to get the trailer out from the spot without scraping it all up.  I knew it was going to be tricky.   I had to beg George to do it for my next 5 years worth of birthdays.

As it was, it took him 8 hours to get the trailer out of there.  The trailer was being supported by several railroad ties.  We discovered that there were only 2 lug nuts on each of the 4 tires and running around trying to find lug nuts was an ordeal in itself.  I was amazed that the tires even held air although one tire did not make it home in one piece (could they possibly be the original 60+ year old tires?).  Another ordeal was the locking lever on the tongue where the ball goes.  It was frozen shut.  It had a decorative emblem that looked like a thunderbird attached to the mechanism and we couldn’t even tell how it worked.  Lots and lots of penetrating oil later, we finally figured out that you have to lift the emblem several inches and then pivot the emblem to hold open the ball mechanism but it was still very hard to get it unfrozen from years of rust so it would not lock down.  I can’t believe we did this but we finally ended up wrapping several layers of duck tape around the whole ball and tongue and went about 20 miles an hour max down backroads practically crawling over the slightest bumps we saw.

All in all we got her home safely.  Was it worth it? YES! …but don’t ask George the same question.  To get it out of it’s boxed-in location, we couldn’t back it up either.  Luckily the man we bought it from helped out by taking down a portion of the fence.  George parked his truck perpendicular to the trailer about 15 feet away and then used a winch to pull the trailer 90 degrees.

I found a mfg plate next to the door that says ‘Traveleer Coach’ Hawthorne, CA.  There is also a Traveleer emblem on the back.  Stepping it off, I think it’s about 28’.  Another interesting fact is that my trailer has no tail lights, just one brake light in the back center.  In researching this, I found that before 1950, they only required one brake light and then in 1950 they started requiring 2 tail lights and turn signals.

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