Trailer Shows of the Past
Trailer Shows were popular events. A trade show gave you the opportunity to see all the current models of the year in one place and you were likely to see a celebrity or daredevil while visiting. It was a day out, strolling through an area and looking at beautiful homes – I can’t think of a better way to spend the day!
A combination of competitiveness and invention was the key to success for the mobile home manufacturing companies and several delivered innovative designs that would become standard in all homes. Public interest in trailers fueled the attendance of the trade shows, where the latest designs and innovation could be seen. Companies were racing to display their new designs at the trade shows before the competition did. Being the first to the market equated to more sales. Research and development were well funded to make the homes bigger, better, and more attractive.
The following photos are from the various trailer and mobile home shows from 1935-2014. Campers were first shown in auto shows and even the auto executives admitted that the new campers and trailers stole the shows. It didn’t take long for trailer shows to headline their own events.
1935 York Trailer Show Display:
Source: Mr. Ed’s Camping Days – mredsewingroom.blogspot.com
1935 Trailer Show:
1935 Bowlus Road Chief Demonstration at a Trailer Show:
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
1936 The Third Outing Trailer Show, Sponsored by The Trailer Coach Association of America – Courtesy of the Auto Club of Southern California:
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
1936 Airfloat Trailer, Courtesy of the Auto Club of Southern California:
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
1941 Eighth Outing Show:
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
Unknown Date- Parade of Homes Illustration of a Trailer Show:
Trailer Show daredevil takes off:
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
1950 Sportsmen’s Vacation and Trailer Show at Gilmore Stadium:
Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America
The interior shots below were taken during the 1955 Mobile Home Manufacturers Association Show in Cleveland, Ohio. They were featured on a neat website called No Pattern Required.
Manufactured home shows are still going strong today. In fact, there’s an article here on Mobile and Manufactured Home Living about last year’s Clayton Home Show. You can tell by the photos that the homes kept getting bigger and better each year! The 1930s to the 1960s represented a wonderful era of innovation and progress for mobile homes and the American ingenuity shined through each and every one of them.
Thank you for reading Mobile Home Living!
Great article, Crystal. I grew up in the Lear-Nagle Mobile Home Park in North Ridgeville, Ohio in a green 8×48 Rollohome, probably 1950-1952 vintage, that my parents bought and towed from Pennsylvania shortly after they were married in 1950. After a year or two in the park, they moved it to a 9-acre lot in the country, added a stick-built living room and bedroom that connected to the trailer’s two side doors, and built a garage with a utility room and covered breezeway. Eventually, my four brothers, a sister, and I lived in that place with my parents. That was our childhood world until they finally pulled the old trailer out, dug a basement, and built on a two-story addition in 1965 to give us some much-needed living space. As popular as mobile homes were in the early 1950s, so few people lived in them by the time I was in grade school that our house was a novelty among all the families I knew. Two or three of my younger brothers eventually lived for a time in larger, newer versions of mobile homes, which were a whole different animal than the tiny place we’d grown up in. I’d love to find photos, print ads, or floor plans of that Rollohome if anyone can point me in the right direction.
Love this site! I live in a ’62 Flamingo.
So glad you like it Gary! I would love to see your Flamingo!
extremely valuable and important information, thank you very much!
Glad you enjoyed it Arthur!