Excellent condition.

Front cover-There is more to this

Charles Harper mobile than meets the

eye. Note the front and rear string

suspension, the delicate balance, and

bright fall colors. Add them together

and you have an "Autumn-mobile".

----------- 2 -----------

VOL. 46 NO. 9

SEPTEMBER, 1954

FORD TIMES

Contents

George Washington Walked Here..

2

FRANK WOODFIELD

"Old Threshers" Meet...

10

A. M. WETTACH

The Round House in Marathon..

14

Custom Conversions..

16

GEORGE F. BURNLEY

Missoula of the Mountains.

19

RICHARD L. NEUBERGER

Strutter in the Sage.

DAVID F. COSTELLO

Man of Many Millstones.

Bluefishing in the Race..

Model T in Liberia.

EDMUND WARE SMITH

32

L. K. PORRITT

40

JAMES R. ASWELL

Reminders of Old Oroville..

44

HARVEY PELL

Million-Dollar Highway.

Ford's New Spinning Wheel.

Favorite Recipes of Famous Taverns.. 57

Americamera-8, 38, 46; One-Picture Story-24;

Game-62; Letters-64.

The Ford Times is published monthly by

Ford Motor Company, 3000 Schaefer, Dearborn, Michigan

PHIL SPELMAN

----------- 3 -----------

at Mt.

Devotees of steam-powered farm machinery gather

Pleasant, Iowa (see story page 10). Photograph by A. M. Wettach

----------- 4 -----------

George Washington Walked Her

by Frank Woodfield

paintings by Paul B. Remmey

THEN the nation completes 168 miles of unusually beauti-

WHEN

ful parkway along the historic Chesapeake and Ohio

Canal sometime in the next few years, some credit must go

to George Washington. For this recreational highway, to

in the heart of Maryland's Allegheny Mountains, will be the

extend from just west of Washington, D. C., to Cumberland,

outgrowth of a cherished project of the first President.

The parkway, from which commercial vehicles will be

barred, will enable the public to follow approximately the

old trail which connected the Chesapeake Bay country with

the rich Indian trading grounds west of the Appalachians.

Washington took this route on surveying trips and during the

French and Indian Wars. The area is still largely primeval in

spots, with stretches of thick woodland and looming moun-

tains to provide vistas of great beauty. Deer range the woods,

and on occasion even bear are seen.

The casual tourist now knows the Potomac only as a broad,

tidewater stream southeast of the capital, meandering se-

dately past Mount Vernon, whispering of Colonial mansions

and great plantations as it laps the tobacco and corn fields

of southern Maryland and Virginia. But above Washington it

is a wild creature, tumbling through granite gorges, roaring

over great masses of rock which try vainly to check its course.

Still farther upstream it is less boisterous, but rapids and

Above right: "Canal Clipper" in one of the lock

Below right: Great Falls of the Potomac Rive

----------- 5 -----------

americamera |

Denver's Hospitality Center

by Catherine L. Barker... photographs by O. Roach

RIVE-INS now provide nearly every conceivable service

from serving up milk shakes to cashing checks. But

nothing could be more welcome or appropriate to a motorist

just arrived in an unfamiliar city-his car loaded down,

hovering uncertainly at a main intersection-than a drive-in

offering street directions and travel information.

This is exactly what a new Drive-in Hospitality Center in

Denver, Colorado, accomplishes. Denver prides itself on

having offered a helping hand to travelers ever since gold-

seeking pioneers were arriving in covered wagons, and the

Denver Convention and Visitor's Bureau, an organization

of business and civic groups, has conveniently located their

Hospitality Center in the heart of the city, on U.S. 40-the

main east-west highway to the mountains. As shown in the

upper picture at right, the modern building is situated close

to the Civic Center, across from the City and County Build-

ing and the U.S. Mint; the gold dome of the State Capitol

Building appears reflected in the lower view.

The lower photograph shows the drive-in window where

travelers receive route directions, and are informed on local

hotels and the many outlying dude ranches, motels and

resorts. Outgoing motorists stop regularly for last-minute road

advice and reports on hunting, fishing, and skiing conditions.

There is no charge for the service.

Inside the large, glass-paneled reception lobby, tourists

can take more leisurely advantage of the information avail-

able, including a "Special Events" calendar which lists ac-

tivities scheduled throughout the state. Recessed dioramas of

Colorado wildlife add an appropriate outdoor atmosphere.

----------- 6 -----------

10

"Old Threshers" Meet

story and photographs by A. M. Wettach

THISTLES SCREECH and clouds of black smoke roll from the

W stacks of more than thirty antique steam farm engines as

the Midwest Old Settlers & Threshers hold another reunion

at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This has been repeated for four years,

with more engines and bigger crowds-it's free-each year.

The last one saw twenty model engines from toy to "pony" size,

accurate replicas of the large ones to the finest detail, blowing

their whistles and steaming over the grounds, or in small

booths, some of them operating sawmills and threshing

machines. One rig baled hay. A few of the big ones are used

occasionally on the farm, but in the main they are treasured

relics, permanently "out to pasture."

People come from far away to take in the four-day show.

They see grain threshed by old-time separators, and engines

snorting in tests of power on the mechanical Prony brake. They

may even drive a big steamer around a track. They watch the

parade of all the engines under their own power, and a string

of cars dating from 1906-some back-firing and smoking-

pass before the grandstand on the race track of the county fair-

grounds. In tents set up on the grounds they eat bounteous,

home-cooked "Old Thresher Dinners" prepared by the ladies

from a number of local churches.

Above right: A big steamer arrives for the meet by trailer.

Below right: This restored tractor has a fringed surrey look

----------- 7 -----------

The Round House in Marathon

painting by Talitha Botsford

EW YORK STATE has always enjoyed a reputation for

NEW

lively variety in its architecture. A single day's tour of

the Hudson and Mohawk river valleys, for instance, would

reveal not only examples of the handsome houses that New

England is noted for, but vast castles built by whimsical

millionaires, Victorian eyesores with funny towers, and such di-

verting styles as the mismating of Taj Mahal with neo-Gothic.

The painting on the opposite page shows a home that tends

to prove the point. It can't be described as either ugly or

beautiful, but it's certainly odd and interesting. To find it

you go to the town of Marathon, which is some fifty miles

south of Syracuse on U.S. 11.

The round house was built about a hundred years ago by

one Joseph Conger, a cooper, or barrel maker. Some historians

think that Conger's occupation had something to do with the

architecture. They suggest that either he built the house

because he had the special tools necessary, or that he did it

to advertise his business, or both.

There are two other suggestions. One, that Conger simply

was fascinated by the efficiency of the railroad roundhouse

and copied it; two, that he was influenced by a man named

Orson Fowler, a phrenology enthusiast of the middle nine-

teenth century who took to building eight-sided houses in

New York State because in his opinion they were healthier

than conventional ones.

Although eight-sides houses, of which there are a number

in the state, are usually cut up in pie-shaped rooms, this

----------- 8 -----------

Missoula of the Mountains

by Richard L. Neuberger... paintings by L. A. Beroth

Ma

Y THREE-YEAR HITCH in the Army ended on the Atlantic

Coast. The girl I was to marry was teaching school in

Oregon. We decided to meet somewhere between. We chose

Missoula, Montana-a glistening little city nestling in an

elbow of hills-a place where five green valleys, each ribbed

with trout streams, unite to send the turbulent Clark Fork

foaming off toward the distant Columbia River.

And so we were married in the high-domed old Missoula

County Courthouse as a pale December sun filtered through

tiers of clouds to tint the outlying bastions of the Sapphire

Range. A barrel-chested cowpuncher with whom I had served

in the Army was our witness. It was typical of Missoula's

carefree, outdoor atmosphere that he attended us in dungarees

and mackinaw, and a fresh store haircut. This Montana

community, where we have seen leathery trappers listening to

erudite lecturers with Phi Beta Kappa keys dangling at their

vests, would always have a special niche in our hearts. It

symbolizes to us all that a city in the western outdoors should be.

It is the fourth largest in the state, with a population of about

25,000, and it stands at the entrance to the chasm where

Captain Meriwether Lewis' campfire flickered while he made

ready to brave Hellgate Canyon along the Clark Fork. That

was about 150 years ago, but the wilderness is still very close!!

to Missoula. Within easy automobile distance sprawl some of

the most spectacular Wilderness Areas set aside by the Forest

Service. Elk, moose, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and

Above left: Higgins Avenue at Broadway.

Below left: Mission Range near Missoula.

----------- 9 -----------

Man of Many Millstones

by Edmund Ware Smith... paintings by F. Wenderoth Saunders

HILIP MACLEAN, of Northeast Harbor, Maine, may be, and

P probably is, unique in all the world. He has been a collector

of millstones for thirty years. He has on hand more millstones

than anyone in both hemispheres.

Philip MacLean enjoys his distinction and says so in a heart-

warming Scotch burr. His peak supply of stones was sixty-

three, and they ranged in weight up to nearly a ton. But

some of the older ones, dating back to 1700 and before, were

worn a bit thin. So Philip estimates that his stones average

1500 pounds. Thus his inventory weighed 94,500 pounds,

or 474 tons.

Currently, Philip possesses and presides over only forty-three

stones. But he would be deeply disturbed to learn of anyone

who owns half as many. Even if this happened, the foresighted

Scotchman has several aces in the hole which he can use to

trump his claim to world distinction.

Who, besides having more millstones than Philip, has at th

same time the talent to carve wondrous miniature seagulls,

fashion model boats, make violins, weave cloth from native

wool, and grow flowers in a self-made greenhouse? Finally,

is your candidate eighty years old? Philip MacLean is!

He is full of merriment, reminiscence and rheumatis

His favorite cane is an old broomstick, which he uses uncom-

plainingly. He lives with his sister, Miss Annie, in a brow

shingled cottage. They get along famously together, laughi

and joking and telling stories on one another. They weave

cloth as a team. Miss Annie paints the boats and birds which

her brother carves.

bove left: Philip MacLean sits on one of his many millstones

Below left: Birches grow through the center holes of some ston

----------- 10 -----------

North Hummock Light,

or "The Dumpling"

+

2

Bluefishing

in the

Race

by L. K. Porritt

paintings by R. J. Holden

WHE

THEN THE GLACIER slid down across New England 25,000

years ago it was like a gigantic bulldozer pushing ahead

of it billions of tons of rock and earth which it had scraped from

the hilltops of the whole region lying between the St. Lawrence

and the Atlantic. But when it met the sea, the glacier met its

match. The waters of the Atlantic, warmed by the Gulf Stream,

melted the mile-high pile of ice as fast as it pushed forward.

And the huge mass of debris was deposited at the ocean's edge.

----------- 11 -----------

americamera/

Chinatown's

House of Representatives

ICTURED

by Charles Leong

photograph by William Eymann

San Francisco's Chinatown. The organization, of great im-

organization known as the Chinese Six Companies, in

on the opposite page is a building housing:

portance in the history of Chinese immigration on the West

Coast, has been a welfare and judicial agency for the Chinese

since the late 1850's,

to represent the thousands of Chinese who came to this

It was formed to answer the need for a social organization

country in the wake of the big gold rush of 1849. Since its

establishment it has fought at least twenty-five laws and

statutes of discrimination against the Chinese. Truly repre-

sentative, its directorate is chosen from the presidents of the

districts originating historically from Canton, China,

Its actual function has been to operate as a supreme court,

legal counsel, census bureau and school serving the Chinese

of the West Coast. It has also founded a hospital.

Nevertheless, because of its prominence in Chinese life it

has been asked to perform many other duties. Not long ago

the scholarly president of the Six Companies received a letter

from a lady in Kansas with the following request:

"Please send me a pair of Chinese silk pajamas, light blue,

size 12. Enclosed is $15 to include cost of gift wrapping."

On other occasions requests have been for everything from

instructions on how to make kites to international peace plans

for China. The organization takes these letters in its stride.

The Chinese writing shown in the picture gives the official

name of the organization, which is the Chinese Consolidated

Penevolent Association. Also in Chinese is their name for San

Francisco's Chinatown, which in translation is "The Big City

in the Golden Hills."

38

38

----------- 12 -----------

40

Model T in Liberia

by James R. Aswell... photographs by Otto Schaler

THIRTY-FIVE years ago Monrovia, drowsy capital of Liberia

-the West Africa Republic founded by freed American

slaves-was a port only in the remotest sense. Vessels had to

anchor a mile out at sea; freight was ferried in by Kru tribes-

men. One day the Kru boys got a large order. They lashed

together four lighters and barely managed to struggle through

revealed an error. The shipment had been consigned to the

the surf with the huge crate. On the beach, smudged stenciling

firm's branch in Nigeria, not Liberia, but to return the crate

to the freighter was to ask two miracles in a row,

The contents: one Model T Ford, disassembled for tight

stowage, plus spare parts, tools and instructions.

Among members of Monrovia's tiny foreign colony was a

young American, Harry McBride, of Pontiac, Michigan, a

receiver of customs and liquidator of confiscated German

property. On impulse he bought the crated assortment for

about $100-though there were no roads in all of Liberia.

With the help of a Cockney stern launch operator, McBride

matched parts, found things that seemed to fit, and finally

had a machine that at least looked like a Model T. Using

gasoline from the local power plant, he whirled the crank.

"It went off first pop," McBride recalls, "Raring to go!"

People came from miles out in the forest to see the Ford

shuttle back and forth in the compound, and invented chat-

tering, shaking dances in the car's honor. At McBride's sug-

gestion, Attorney General Edwin J. Barclay put the idle jail

population to work clearing and smoothing Monrovia's streets,

Above right: The Memarinna, one of Monrovia's modern restaurants

Below right: Thatched huts where rubber plantation employees live

----------- 13 -----------

44

Reminders of Os Oroville

story and paintings by Harvey Pell

Tobjects in the history of Oroville, a town in the California

HE PICTURES on the opposite page concern important

gold country with a typical gold town's history of violence

and greed.

The temple shown in the upper picture was built by the

Chinese who flocked into the region on the heels of the white

miners to work diggings already abandoned or to find pay

dirt overlooked by earlier miners. Their success was such that

within a short time there were 10,000 of them, giving Oroville

the second biggest Chinatown in California.

Fires swept through this Chinatown periodically, making

life for the inhabitants difficult. Besides this there was the usual

anti-Chinese agitation which added to their hardships. Finally,

when the diggings petered out, the Chinese slowly abandoned

the area. Now there are only one or two families remaining.

This temple, built in 1858, is all that remains of the China-

town buildings. It would have gone like the rest but for the

and zeal of the Oroville Women's Community Club,

which bought and restored it. Containing tapestries, brass

lamps, gongs and other objects, it is a magnificent Oriental

museum. The building is thought to be the oldest Chinese

temple in the West, and one of the finest outside China.

energy

In the lower picture is a rusting dredge that figured in

Oroville's second gold era, from 1898 to 1908. During that

time twenty million dollars in gold was washed from Oroville's

earth by as many as forty-four similar dredges.

Today Oroville is a quiet, tree-shaded town of 5,387 popu-

lation, a pleasant little place in which the excitement of the

past is remembered by old people's stories and by such struc

tures as are shown here.

----------- 14 -----------

americamera |

V

The Corning Glass Center

VISITORS to a modern industrial plant who have been

impressed by the marvels of mass production and intri-

cate machinery will find a unique contrast and an equally

fascinating experience at the Corning Glass Center where

skilled craftsmen, using painstaking hand methods, manu-

facture the world-famed Steuben glass. In addition to the

Steuben factory (right, below) the Center portrays in several

ways man's achievements in glass.

Just inside the entrance is the first of the two 200-inch

telescope disks cast for the Mt. Palomar observatory-a glow-

ing circle of glass weighing nearly twenty tons; close by is a four-

inch vase, an Egyptian amphoriskos made of molten threads

of glass some 3500 years ago. The two objects introduce the

visitor to the Museum of Glass where about a tenth of Corning's

collection, assembled for its scientific and historical interest

as well as its beauty, is on display. The museum includes a

library of books, prints, engravings and reference material or

glass which is the most comprehensive in existence anywhere

Exhibits in the Hall of Science and Industry explain the

nature of glass-what it is, how it is made, its many use

and forms. The Glass Center, a structure of modern desig

located in Corning, New York, has attracted more tha

1,300,000 visitors since its dedication in 1951 on the hun-

dredth anniversary of the Corning Glass Works.

The tour, unguided so that the visitor may set his ow

pace, is climaxed at the Steuben factory across a Pyre

covered bridge. Each step in the making of fine glass-mel

ing, gathering, blowing, shaping, cutting, engraving ang

polishing-may be watched in detail. Finished pieces are

display as pictured at right, above. There is no admissi

charge to the Glass Center, which is open from 9:30 to 5:00

every day except Monday.

on

----------- 15 -----------

COLORADO'S

INA

Million-Dollar Highway

by Phil Spelman...paintings by Edgar Britton

A gasoline station at Ouray, Colorado, a muscular, gentle

man with deeply calloused hands fixes flats, gasses cars and

runs the restaurant across the street for a living. But at heart

he is a sourdough, and he does these chores while he waits for

his "good-lookin'" stake out near the "Million" to make him

rich. If he takes a liking to you he will ignore his honking

customers and show you his box of green-glinting uranium

ore samples which he keeps in a cabinet by the grease rack.

But he will not approve your driving the Million at night.

He's referring to the Million-Dollar Highway, that stretch

of U.S. 550 which twists like a roller coaster from Ouray up

through the San Juan Mountains to the 11,018-foot summit

of Red Mountain Pass, and then snakes down past Silverton.

Not that the Million is dangerous, although it is one of the

few remaining U.S. highways which can honestly be labeled

adventurous motoring.

"The Million's a feast for the eyes, man," he reverently con-

fides. "You wouldn't put on dark glasses for a sunset, would you?"

That sums up, as well as words can, the austere, soul-stirring

panorama of snow-capped mountains, bubbling rivers and

grassy canyons which lies along the Million. There's an element

of adventure in driving along the two-car-wide ledge carved

Above left: Entrance to the valley in which Ouray nestles.

Below left: Ouray's natural warm water swimming pool.

----------- 16 -----------

Favorite Recipes of Famous Taverns

The Cranberry Goose is located in a two-hundred-

year-old Cape Cod cottage on U.S. 6 in Yarmouth Port, Massa-

chusetts. Lunch and dinner served daily, except Tuesday. Tea

served from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Closed the last two weeks

of October and Christmas week.

----------- 17 -----------

Mathon's Sea Food Restaurant maintains its

own crew and fishing boats in the waters of Lake Michigan to

bring to its patrons the finest choice of fresh fish. Lunch and

dinner served, except Monday. It is two blocks east of State

Highway 42, at 6 East Clayton Street in Waukegan, Illinois.

----------- 18 -----------

Arnaud's Restaurant is one of the truly famous

names in a city noted for its fine restaurants. The address is

801-835 Bienville Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Open daily from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.

----------- 19 -----------

painting by L. A. Beroth

To RICHARD L. NEUBERGER, Missoula, Montana, symbolizes

"all that a city in the western outdoors should be." It is the

spawn of mountains. The great backbone of the Continental

Divide looms to the east, the Bitterroots guard it on the we

while lesser kin of the Rockies, such as the Sapphire and Mis-

sion ranges, pock the valleys which lie between. Its name stems

from a Flathead Indian word meaning "near the cold waters"

for it lies at the entrance to Hellgate Canyon, along the Clark

Fork, where Captain Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Cla

Expedition made camp 150 years ago. Missoula is still close

the wilderness, which is one reason why Mr. Neuberger wri

so fondly of it. His story, accompanied by other paintings

Mr. Beroth, begins on page 19.