history, always with surprises. The 7 cylinder rotary engine by Macomber, 1915

Those rims too... cool and unusual.

Well the grand daughter of the inventor/mechanic, is very interested in locating an actual Macomber rotary engine and an Eagle-Macomber car.

If anyone out there has any leads, please contact Bart Parker at the Rand Desert Museum by clicking here, or www.andersonwritingservices.com.

http://cynthiashidesertblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/walter-macomber-macomber-rotary-engine.html

The significance of 1915 was that it was the year of the San Diego Exposition Road Race that was the opening event for the Pan Pacific Expo... sort of a worlds fair type of year long event http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/12/100th-anniversary-of-panama-california.html

What little remains of a Michigan trolley car, around 100 years old, and repurposed as a hunting shack for a while before it fell apart entirely

Found on http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/2010/03/a-streetcar-revisited/

A steam roller and dump truck, and you have the major vehicles needed to pave roads 1935

Found on http://www.shorpy.com/node/16798

one of the few wheeled things that became obsolete, and organ grinder

very small piece of a 1925 New Orleans photo found on Shorpy http://www.shorpy.com/node/16748

Scuderia Ferrari

Found on https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008801085412

the San Diego and Pacific Beach Rail Road

Found on https://www.pinterest.com/1966scottsman/san-diego-back-in-the-day/

Historic San Diego Pinterest

Bus advertising, the one thing that has decreased over the centuries

Found on https://www.facebook.com/historicaltimes?fref=nf

1,2,3,4,5 and #57

Found on https://www.facebook.com/groups/505973489414476/?fref=nf

Washing the ambulance between call outs, 1944, England

Women of the American Ambulance Great Britain wash an ambulance car of the surgical unit to pass the time between call-outs at their depot, somewhere in London, 1944.

found on http://www.vintag.es/2014/10/women-at-work-in-united-kingdom-in.html

WW1 dispatch rider, 1914

Found on http://www.vintag.es/2014/10/amazing-vintage-photographs-of-british.html

Old Oak Common Engine Shed, 1906

A postcard depicting the roundhouse with vents for the steam locomotives... imagine the smog if they weren't venting those coal burners to outside of the building!

Found on https://www.facebook.com/HeritageRailway/posts/652462124858194

in 1961 (54 years ago!) they were holding sports car races in the grocery store parking lot... times and the cars speeds have changed a lot

The Safeway store in Pacific Beach, between San Diego and LaJolla on the shore.

Images from https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vintage-San-Diego/181625028554101 gallery of the Convair Sports Car Club, photos by John Fry

the oldest concrete paved road in Michigan, 109 years and still useful... in a small town that hasn't upgraded a lot of things, like the stop signs and light poles

Detroit had paved some of Woodward Ave with the Granitoid method, but they had the funds to repave every 50 years or so, unlike the boomtown of Calumet, which never has been able to afford to resurface or replace the first paving of the 7th street of 1906. It was deemed historic in 1956 when the above historic marker was installed. Now it's obviously history and not likely to be replaced anytime soon, and 109 years of aging could be 129 years or more, as funds aren't likely to surprise anyone to have 7th st replaced

found on http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/2013/01/the-centenarian-road/

because the city of Calumet is so old, and underfunded on typical civic improvements, light poles are also on the list of things that haven't ever been replaced

http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/2011/11/a-calumet-light-pole/

http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/2009/06/stop-sign/

1916 Mack AC Bulldog

In the middle of the 4 wheel to 6 wheel era, and close enough to the mule wagons that the rear wheels seem to be straight off a heavy haul cart

Found on https://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/16499881908/

ostrich racing carts and around the farm ostrich wagons

Full gallery about an LA ostrich farm in 1900 at 

1906 San Francisco dog catcher

Found on https://www.facebook.com/isabelle.bracquemond.7?fref=nf

the Campbell Chariot of the Henry Ford museum, built in 1797 by New York coachmaker William Ross

Found on http://www.brhoward.com/ross_chariot.html

One of only two known vehicles of its type, is a rare survivor among only a handful of 18th century American carriages and perhaps the only vehicle that remains in original condition.

one of two known 1926 Model TT Ford Motor Home

Ford Motor Co. records indicate that only six modified chassis, such as the one used to construct this motor home, were ever built.

The framing of the superstructure was made from new Model T Ford automobile frame rails, bolted and riveted together. The rear porch pillars were driveshaft tubes from one-ton Model TT Ford trucks.

The modification of the chassis included but was not limited to a second independent non-powered axle used to create tandem rear wheels and an overall extension of the chassis by more than eight feet. The body of the motor home is thought to be a third party addition to the chassis and was not constructed by Ford.

Rhene Miller grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania and made her first public appearance at the age of three when she was featured in her father's traveling medicine show. She studied music in New York City and became a "one-girl band" with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Her life story is interesting and in a book you can read on Google

 During the Great Depression, her circus closed and she and her husband, Charles Meyer, drove their circus carriage into Smackover in 1929. This 1926-27 Ford T-Model vehicle, the forerunner of the modern-day motor home, served as living quarters to Rhene for the next fifty-five years.

In the late 1990's the motor home was removed from its swampy parking space and placed on exhibit at the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in Smackover.

Found on http://www.brhoward.com/model_t_motor_home.html  with more images and info from
http://www.amnr.org/goat.htm , https://www.flickr.com/photos/jannikonmcneil/4833845324/in/photostream/  , http://www.arkansas.com/cities/smackover , http://kbeau.blogspot.com/2009/04/goat-lady.html

Illinois Central Green Diamond streamliner,

The Illinois Central's first streamlined passenger train proved popular with the traveling public between Chicago, and St. Louis on the Illinois Central Railroad. It operated from 1936 until 1968.

The name honored the "green diamond" in the Illinois Central's logo as well as the Diamond Special, the Illinois Central's oldest train on the Chicago-St. Louis run.

Like the second-generation City trains which it resembles, the Green Diamond was built by Pullman, but was made of Corten steel rather than aluminum. Pullman constructed the Green Diamond's original fixed consist, which included a power car, baggage/mail car, coach, coach-dinette, and kitchen-dinette-parlor-observation car. The coach seated 56, while the coach-dinette seated 44 in the coach section and the dinette area had seating for 16. The parlor car had seating for 22.

 It was the last fixed-consist train built in the 1930s for a railroad in the United States. The train's interior was art deco, as was popular in the period.

Found on https://www.facebook.com/HeritageRailway?fref=photo

http://www.rediff.com/money/slide-show/slide-show-1-historic-and-iconic-images-of-train-journey/20120830.htm#28

Found on http://streamlinermemories.info/?p=2351

http://streamlinermemories.info/Eastern/GreenDiamond.jpg

Imagine getting the chance to buy your great-grand dads fire truck, the one he was the Fire Chief on

photos from a gallery of a couple dozen images you might want to see at http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/gallery/news/ford-model-t-fire-pumper/collection_867d52dc-c454-11e4-8033-c754830d5e0f.html?mode=jqm&pos=8

There is a video on http://videos.pressofatlanticcity.com/1921-Model-T-Fire-Truck-Back-in-West-Cape-May-28675714

Back in 1921 Chuck McPherson’s great-grandfather, Bill Eldredge was the fire chief of the West Cape May Volunteer Fire Company, and spearheaded the effort to get a Model T pumper fire truck, Ford made the cab and chassis, but then the company had to bring the chassis to the Hale Fire Pump Co. in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, for installation of the pump and other outfitting work.

Recently, a fire truck collector called Chuck and offered him first chance to buy it. Chuck is the possibly 4th generation fire fighter, his great grand dad was fire chief in 1921, his grand father joined the fire dept in 1937.

While modern pumpers carry at least 1,000 gallons of water, the Model T has a 60-gallon tank. It could be set to draft from a lake or other water source, while another option was using a bucket brigade to keep filling the tank through a “slop feed” on the top.

If they had to go in a house, a handy Dietz kerosene lantern hung on back of the truck for interior lighting.

For more of the story: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/west-cape-fire-department-gets-model-t-pumper-back/article_3050c0b4-c603-11e4-abea-8f4757f5eb4b.html