Old Vendor Wagons Sometimes Doubled As RVs

You don’t see these old wooden vendor wagons much anymore. They came in various shapes and sizes and were frequently homemade. Reminiscent of the gypsy wagons of Europe they sometimes doubled as both a vendor wagon and an RV. This one at the Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio, Texas originally had wooden wheels. The museum uses it in parades, so they replaced them with rubber tires. The suspension is original and so is the wooden plank frame. The sides opened up to display whatever wares the traveling vendor was selling. These wagons were primarily pulled by mules with the vendor walking and leading them. Some models had driver seats, a beefier suspension and could be driven like a stage coach. Notice how narrow the wheel base is on this antique mobile store. Now imagine the narrow, rutted roads this trailer traveled. The vendors who used these wagons frequently used them like we use an RV. He could cook, sleep and eat in this unit while making his sales circuit that might cover hundreds of miles. The owners and operators of these turn of the century wagons are long dead, but I wonder what they would think about our modern RVs today? Will your RV be a museum piece someday where people will walk by and wonder about the person who owned it? If it's a usable road I'm on it - Jim Twamley, Professor of RVing