The trailer industry was in its infancy in the late 1920s and early 1930s and most trailers were home-made affairs. The Depression brought a new emphasis on economy for the do-it-yourself trailer enthusiast. Magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science frequently ran plans and contests for homemade travel trailers. The designs for these early efforts looked like nothing so much as small, pitched-roof fishing shanties. Each builder vied with the others to use the most second hand materials scrounged from auto wrecking yards and less industrious neighbors. 11

1942 Alma trailer.

Popular Mechanics offered this advice in a 1932 article entitled "At Home on the Road in a Trailer":

"If small articles are placed in these compartments (in the trailer) rubber bands cut

from old inner tubes, are tacked to the partitions and the articles slipped between

to hold them securely without rattling. In the case of larger articles, other arrangements can be improvised." 12

These trailers had many of the basic comforts of home. It was almost as comfortable as a tourist motor court cabin at a fraction of the expense. However, in the early years there were no facilities to properly accommodate trailers. Many trailer owners on the road simply would pull in to any vacant lot to set up housekeeping. Farrington's was probably such an impromptu campground.

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