MIMOSA VALLEY RV PARK
1901 to 1910
A 1909 edition of Motor Magazine showed a car pulling a trailer, and an article about Dr. Charles A. Morsman’s “automobile camping trailer” from around the same time reports the trailer had a bed, a small kitchen, and hot and cold running water thanks to an onboard water tank. Before long, simple wooden structures were constructed on the chassis of a car and the first motor homes were made.
The first motor home was built from a 3-ton Packard truck in 1910. It could sleep 11 people, was 28 feet long, had an icebox, toilet, and salon, and was 6 and a half feet wide. The motor home was used up until 1924.
1911 to 1920s
Campers continued to find more ingenious ways to adapt cars to their lifestyles, usually using wood and tents to construct their living spaces. These RVs and motor homes had refrigerators or ice boxes, kitchenettes, showers or baths, and other typical features. Some were even hooked up with telegraphs and electric lights.
The house car “gypsy van” was built in 1915. It weighed 8 tons, had an interior like an English manor house, and even had a rooftop garden. The first fifth-wheel camping trailer hit the road in 1917.
1921 to 1930
Until the 1920s, the most common car was the Ford Model T, and RVs had to be custom-built. In 1923, a Nomad house car was built on the chassis of the Ford Model TT. It was owned by novelists John Stanton and Mary Chapman, who owned it for 47 years and traveled in it to 24 states. In 1927, Leonard S Whittier built a custom RV on the chassis of a Brockway model” H’ bus chassis. It had wicker chairs, bookcases, a refrigerator, and a sink as well as an electric stove. It even had a septic tank.
