Text by Patrick Bell.
We are going to travel around today and view some images of trailer homes and parks. A few of these are homes away from home, but overall they show a simpler time and how people got by just fine with less.
This set up belonged to Edward Butlers, who lived in Connecticut in this image dated 1957. The trailer home had the wheels removed (or buried), was set up on blocks, and had a nice, tall TV antenna. What more do you need? Their tow vehicle was a ’55 Buick Century 4 door Riviera with a heavy duty hitch, new style narrow white wall tires that may have been oversized, and trim rings to go with the basic hub caps. Apparently they were arriving from, or about to depart on a trip to England, hence the luggage by the door.
Here is a lady with her eyes on something. A ’55 Chevrolet Two-Ten Handyman wagon that could have used a wash job and a trailer home of at least 25 feet, appear like they were about ready to hit the road. I don’t see any sign of a “V8” emblem below the tail light, so this may have been a six cylinder, a slow but steady tow vehicle.
We are now in Washington D.C., at the East Potomac Park in April of 1960. The black over white ’58 Ford Country Sedan belongs to the Sportcraft camp trailer, and down further is a ’55 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe St. Regis. On the right is a ’57 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket 88.
Another Chevrolet Two-Ten Handyman with a six cylinder, this one a ’57 model from British Columbia. It had a matching trailer, and a small family to boot. The location was Calgary, Alberta, in what appears to be someone’s backyard.
A ’55 Oldsmobile Super 88 4 door sedan with a color coordinated Ideal camper in a small trailer park close to a highway. Parked in front of it was a ’51 Chevrolet.
Two families were camping in Klamath, California, in this image from 1959. Klamath is forty miles south of the Oregon border on US Highway 101 at the Klamath River. In the background likely was the highway bridge over the river. In the foreground is a V8 powered ’55 Ford Country Sedan with a Shasta camper, and on the other side of it, a ’57 Mercury Montclair Phaeton Sedan with the Turnpike Cruiser 368 cubic inch motor.
This was a nice, clean trailer park on a sunny day with a sharp ’58 Ford Fairlane 500 Club Victoria parked in the driveway.
Now here was a very well equipped campsite with an awning, camp stove, chaise lounge, fold up table, and a cooler to go along with the camp trailer and the ’60 Chevrolet Parkwood or Kingswood wagon. The wagon may have a California license plate and that could have been the location as well.
Here was a ’62 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday Sedan and a Shasta camp trailer. Shasta was a very popular brand during the second half of the twentieth century and they still are made today. They were known for their “wings” on the upper rear sides. The location looks like a national park campground.
Another Shasta, this one with a ’61 Chevrolet Biscayne 2 door sedan for a tow vehicle. In the background is a grey and white ’59 Ford Country Sedan. It looks like an early spring day.
Color coordinated cars and campers seemed to be popular, understandably so in the colorful era of the fifties and sixties. Here we had a ’63 Mercury Monterey Custom 4 door sedan from California and a camp trailer with an overhead extension. The location also may have been California.
Another ’63 Mercury, this one a Colony Park wagon with the optional third seat, the only full size wagon offered that year. Also another camp trailer with an overhead extension, and an awning for some protection from the weather.
Thanks for traveling with us today and have a great day!
Very nice article with pictures. I thought this was a rerun, but it’s not. I guess this is actually Part II to this article from last year.
I like these pictures .
You had to have lived in that time I understand that living for years in a trailer wasn’t the grubby poverty existence it’s considered today, the trailer parks were far nice and cleaner .
-Nate
When I was in my early 20’s and a starving grad student, I resided in a small trailer park, behind the Safeway, in a probably early 1960’s 10X50 trailer which rented for $150 per month. The unoffical matron of our little neighborhood was a woman in her 70’s, named Stella. Stella was quite a colorful character, short, stout, and no sufferer of fools. Stella, a former carnival worker, loved trailer living. One time she told me, “If you get sick of your g-d neighbors, all you gotta do is hook on to your trailer, pick up and move someplace else.” There have been a few times since when that kind of nomad mobility has had a certain appeal
Here’s a street view of the park now. That’s Stella’s actual 1964 trailer on the left, next to the Dodge Caliber. My trailer would’ve have been close to the street, about where the utility box is.
Love these! A cool memory I have of childhood, was having military parents.
Canadian Forces bases like other militaries, provided large storage and parking areas for personnel. A great opportunity to checkout classic trailers, campers, and pickups.
Space was shared between officers and enlisted personnel. As you could see long Airstream trailers, parked near humble tent trailers. With racks for boats, and canoes.
Always loved these small metal trailers, in fashionable two-tone colours.
Lots of heavy “stick n tin” trailers, but that black ’58 Fotd Fairlane 500 with the gold anodized graphic sweep still looks GOOD today! A very nice design altho the ’57 Fairlane 500 was a cleaner one!
Curiously while car design has both evolved n now perhaps devolved, RV “design” still largely remains of the back yard, home grown “look”. OTOH, people still purchase the relatively crude RVs………go figure? Of course, now finding any COLOR (unlike the pictured units of yesteryear) in or on a RV is almost impossible: the blaah, achromatic “look” is in: White, Grey, blACK. BTW, motorcycles are just as colorless; as are some recently built dealerships. 🙁 DFO
The “63, Merc wagon photo’s quite well.
This story reminds me of aging rocker Iggy Pop talking about growing up with his parents in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan in the early 1960s. His father owned a very large car. I think it was a Cadillac. His high school buddies used to rib him by saying, “Hey, man! Your car is as big as your house!”
In the 50s and 60s it was common to see permanent trailers as backyard rentals. Sometimes the trailer was under a sort of carport, keeping it cool in the summer and protecting the trailer’s weak roof from rain and hail and snowload.
Now a backyard trailer is a sign of meth.
This is still a thing in certain small towns in rural parts of the country. The rents are not particularly cheap either IMHO. Usually slightly more than a similarly sized apartment and about the same as a small similarly sized conventional house.
I grew up in a Spartanette and then a Spartan Royal Manor.
It’s not easy to choose the best photo. They’re all great.
The colors of the cars and trailers were cheerful, today…
A good publication with good texts.
My parents pulled a big trailer with a car from the 1940s. They were married in 1950 in VA. Traveling all over the US. I was born in NM in 51. They settled in mich. In 56 at a small nice new trailer park. After 3 boys moved to a house
Back in the 1950’s Seattle, a small “trailer park” opened on the Eastside of Highway 99 across the highway from Seattle/Tacoma International Airport; it was called “Trailer Town”.
My Gramma Nina bought a new single wide and moved in in 1960. To an 11 year old kid, she had the perfect lot directly across the street from the Recreation Hall AND more importantly the swimming pool.
It was kinda a golden era for trailer living.
I wish they’d have shown pictures of some Airstream trailers!