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The long standby horses pulling wagons were nolonger competition. The more flexible Ford truckscould more easily negotiate wagon roads found on

the ranches and woodlots throughout the country.And these Ford trucks could also take the place of a

passenger car for driving to town from the farm. So farm-ers and ranchers, as well as merchants, all needed themand they were also affordable. By 1923, the license bu-reau records showed seventy-five percent of the truckslicensed on the road were Ford trucks. One wonders howmany out there driven were never licensed. Anyway, thatleaves the other twenty-five percent to make up all theother makes combined.

Ford’s Model TT

Truck of Many Uses

1926 Ford TT k Grant Lundin’s dad bought this truck brand new in 1926 for $600. This model with the deluxe cabwas purchased from A.O. Skinner in Rathdrum, Idaho.

BY GRANT LUNDIN

Today I want to tell about a decade during whichHenry Ford’s Model TT trucks dominated the truck-ing industry. You might ask, “How could a vehicle asflimsy looking as that, dominate anything?” Well, the

answer is “What else was there to compete with?”Back in 1917 was when Henry Ford started his

production line of trucks along with his Model Tcars, which had already been famous for eight years.

January 2005 � Nostalgia Magazine � 11

Parts and Accessories from Monkey WardsRepair parts were not only affordable, but plentiful,

most mechanical parts being the same as Model T cars.The main exception was the heavier frame and that awe-some, almost indestructible worm drive rear end!

For repair parts, it was not that unusual to purchase aset of spark plugs or a fan belt, perhaps even a set ofbands, at the local grocery store. But of course, Sears andRoebuck’s mail order catalogue carried most everything.Any part or accessory for a Ford car or truck, Sears’ orWard’s catalogues usually had them. Many pages weredevoted to special accessories drooled over by T and TTowners. One of these special items, said to double theperformance of the trucks, was the 3-speed Warford aux-iliary transmission; their feature was now six speedsahead with Warford gears engineered to be half speed tothe Ford transmission ahead. So now you could splitgears, and get your load off for faster start. Since thesewere straight cut gears, changing speeds involved doubleclutching. Ford’s hand throttle was not at all handy forthis, so the next thing to buy was an accessory foot pedalto mount on the floor board. This left your right hand freeto use the shift lever. It was also common for truck own-ers to install the Ford-made Ruxtell two-speed rear ends.Then one could boast twelve speeds ahead with the

Warford. Many passenger cars also had this most helpfuladdition installed by their owners. Especially the heavierclosed cars. Many more add-on transmissions came onthe market as well in this T heyday era. Two of the morepopular transmissions were the Jumbo and Muncie. Justhousehold words of the day.

Water pumps too, were a needed accessory. Pa oftenfound his truck to be boiling in a cloud of steam on thesteep pitches in the mountains while hauling heavy loads.Curiously enough, the engine seemed to know when tostop, and just quit running when it overheated. But it wasalways ready to start up and run again when the steamsubsided. Finally, Pa had Skinner’s Ford garage install anaccessory water pump. Presto: now the pump, driven bya longer fan belt, was pumping the overheated waterfrom the engine thru the radiator, taking over where theoriginal thermo-siphon could no longer handle the steam.No more stops on mountain roads from overheating!

As we talk about Ford accessories, mention must bemade of the almost countless manufacturers of Ford truckcabs, and dump beds as well. Ford wasn’t making muchshowing on cabs until almost 1924, when the all-steelopen “C cab” came with the chassis. The term “C cab”was put on by a modern generation of hot-rodders forthese now much sought after sheet metal panels. Previ-

The Big Guys k The TT Fords still held their place among the big solid rubber tire trucks of various makes, such asthose shown here with the Long Lake Lumber Co. where Grant Lundin worked one winter. Two large 1919 White trucks

hauled lumber at that mill every day.

Photo: Mac McDonald

12 � Nostalgia Magazine � January 2005

ously it was common to order a custom wooden cabthrough the dealer when you bought the chassis. Nowa-days, when I see a wooden cab truck, recollections comeback of a very shaky 1920 truck of Bill Richmonds inRathdrum. On the back was mounted a large one cylin-der gas engine driving a saw blade for sawing wood. Eachfall, Pa hired this rig to saw up a winter’s supply of woodat our ranch. Even as a small lad, I became very familiarwith its machinery as there was always a day’s work forme connected with it, taking the sawed wood away fromthe blade. The engine driving the saw was called a hit-and-miss engine as the governor would allow it to fireonly when power was needed. The inertia of two heavyflywheels kept it rolling in between times. But when it didfire, everything shook. Cab and truck and all. I couldnever believe that cab would stay in one piece all day.Every board in it shook. Yet, the following year, it wouldstill be there.

Logging With the Ford TTFord dealers were everywhere all through the teens and

twenties. Actually, most all over the world. Our smalltown of Rathdrum, Idaho, population 500, was no ex-

ception. Ford dealers had a continuous market of T carsand TT trucks, plus parts for the eighteen years of pro-duction through 1927.

It is understandable that it is hard for those of this gen-eration to even believe that these trucks were actuallyused for hauling logs. We think of logging trucks asPeterbilts, Macks, and Kenworths, but I can name offmany loggers from my day whom I knew well from ourarea, during the 1920s, who made their living haulinglogs with these single tired trucks and trailers. A few Iknew were Jess Finney, Charley Finney, Shorty Weeks,Sam Tirnell, Perly Smith, and most of the Howell boys:Bill, Isom, Fred, and Charley.

Pa’s truck was already doing universal hauling duty.Cordwood, fence posts, live stock, anything on the ranch,even hauling gravel on roads for the county’s annualspring time filling of the winter time ruts in the roads forthe Georgetown community. A time of prosperity foranyone who wanted to work hauling gravel with his truckor use a hand shovel for loading. Two or three days ofworking for the county for a paycheck was an importanttime for the community. It seems the county only owneda three-horse road grader in our district. One year, I

Photo: Mac McDonald

A Model TT compete with this? k Yup, these large trucks, strong as they were, could still count on seeing thehandy little Ford TT trucks hauling everything from logs to cattle.

January 2005 � Nostalgia Magazine � 13

pulled that grader easily with my model TT cut-off trucktractor.

Of course the bigger saw mills and logging companiesused the larger trucks with their hard rubber tires forheavy hauling. But the TT Fords still held their placeamong them. An example in my experience was theLong Lake Lumber Co. where I worked one winter. Twolarge lumber haulers at their mill, used every day, were1919 Whites. For their day, they could haul huge loads. Itwas my job, as I began my day at 7 a.m., to get themstarted. A long handled starting crank hung at the front,but in the winter time it took much more coaxing. Thefirst thing was to build a fire under the oil pan. This wouldfree up the congealed oil to circulate again, and make iteasier to crank. Then its magneto spark would better ig-nite the more vaporized gas mixture.

But they couldn’t do without their Model T tractor, ashortened truck used for towing trailer loads of lumber inthe mill yard. It ran every workday. One day, the enginetotally gave up, after its many years of hard usage. Itseemed like the whole mill almost came to a stop. Theyhad me as their mechanic lay aside the important dutiesand sent me out to find another engine to install withoutdelay!

Meanwhile, Back at the RanchAt our ranch, Pa was proud of his big logging team of

horses as well as a heavy working wagon he bought newin 1918 for logging his bountiful timberland. Now Pa, asan exponent from the old country; had but little insighton things automotive, and tended to avoid them. Buthorses he understood, and was highly experienced withreal horsepower. I recall stories he would tell of haulingfreight on wagons driving six horses on a winding roadthrough the sagebrush from Shantigo to Umatilla,through Eastern Oregon. What a challenge! But likemany people of the older generation in that day, he’dnever laid hands on the steering wheel of a truck.

Until one day, with his wagonload, he met a Ford truckcoming back from his first trip before Pa had got startedpart way with the horses. With those experiences hap-pening quite often, and the fact that most everywherethat working people were gathered, Ford cars and truckswere the main topic of conversation, Pa could see thewheels of progress were getting well ahead of him.

And so it happened on an October day, Pa found him-self in Spokane, determined to go modern with a goodused Model TT truck. He had expected to find used onesplentiful, but it seems they were being snapped up assomething many others were also looking for. He did findone. The auto dealer was asking only 250 dollars. Thesalesman went out to start it up, but it was just a bit cold

and frosty that morning and the engine wouldn’t fire up.He solved that shortly by putting a jack under the rearwheel and pushing the lever into high gear. With thewheel turning in high gear, the engine kicked off almostright away.

Pa just wasn’t impressed, though. He said, “If I’ve gotto go through this every morning, I’ll just buy a newtruck!”

So back to Rathdrum he went to see his friends atSkinner’s Garage to look at a new one. I’m sure Mr. Skin-ner was glad to see him coming. He showed Pa a newone they called a ’26 model with the latest features,namely, an all-steel cab with doors that had roll up win-dows with three position pull-up straps. A Ruxtell two-speed worm drive rear end went with this and was anadded 200 dollars. Pa fell for it, though I heard him say,“I don’t know how I’ll ever pay for it”

The total price: 600 dollars.But moving to fast forward here: That truck did far

more than pay for itself. It was a real workhorse. There isa long-standing joke to his starting it for the first coldmorning when he cranked it. Guess what! It just wouldn’tstart. It was then he remembered the jacking up a wheelroutine he’d learned form the Spokane sales man on thatused truck for half the price.

Reliable RigThis all soon came to be just routine stuff, and it still

beat harnessing and hitching the horses. There was no

Photo: Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (L97.1.38)

Versatile Rig k Hofius-Ferris Equipment Co. used thistruck for local deliveries.

14 � Nostalgia Magazine � January 2005

doubt the Ford truck was here to stay. It could be de-pended on when Pa’s big eight-cylinder Studebaker, sit-ting in the shed alongside the Ford TT, had continuousailments no matter how much fixing it received.

To us kids, it seemed we were going somewhere all thetime now, and the fact that we must sit on the back onthe flatbed truck, while Pa and Ma sat in the cab, both-ered us not one iota! At seven years old, we almost livedwith that truck when we weren’t in school. It serveddouble service: shopping trips to town when it wasn’t onthe road hauling cordwood or fence posts from thewoods. It played the major part in hauling livestock tomarket as well.

With the livestock market only twenty-seven miles awayin Spokane, hogs and steers could be delivered with anhour and a half drive. Even with driving the gravel wash-board Trent Road for a half of the way from Rathdrum.

Pa, along with his closest neighbor and son-in-law, be-longed to a county dairy and livestock association. To-gether they found a job using Pa’s truck to deliver bullsfor the association’s bull trading program. Pa’s new Fordtruck, well equipped with cattle racks, seemed to holdthese cattle men’s confidence to haul their highly prizedcattle. But think what a laugh that would bring to today’sfarmer, considering those muddy, rutted roads that con-stantly required chains, and only a 20 horsepower enginefor power.

But at home on the ranch were two seven-year-old

boys, waiting to hear the stories of the many days of ex-citing adventures that Pa would have to tell. And theywere very real! These towns and places he told of were anew world to us. We had never heard of Worley,Harrison, Rockford, Rode Lake, or Hoodoo Gulch, letalone Fourth of July Canyon! But Ma, she had to stayhome to milk the cows.

From then on, our truck found more than enough workat home on the ranch. It was the fall of 1927, and Pa hadwon the bid for a hundred cords of wood for theRathdrum school. Dry, split, and delivered. The previouswinter had been spent cutting wood, and now he had thetruck to haul it.

Boyhood AdventureFor us eight-year-olds, there was a place to fill, espe-

cially on the loaded trips into town. We took turns onthese many days of hauling. One of the special “kid jobs”was to be ready with a chock block for a rear wheel whenPa parked the truck to unload. I remember watching thewoodpile grow each new trip, four feet high, four feetwide, eight feet long for each new cord, till the pile be-came a total eighty feet long. All of it brought there bythat little Ford TT truck. The smell of those dry pitchy fircordwood sticks linger to this day.

These were summer days of adventure for us boys, noteasily forgotten. How could one forget the tremendoussteam locomotives that we’d occasionally meet on the

Photo: Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture

Assembled Line of Ford TTs k Martin-Perry Corporation, “Largest Commercial Body Builders in the World,” showsoff its craftsmanship in 1925.

January 2005 � Nostalgia Magazine � 15

tracks at Rathdrum where the trains stopped at the watertank. Our little truck would shiver and shake when theengineer blew off steam, as we sat waiting to cross.

I remember too how delicious a cantaloupe tasted,which Pa bought at the store. We sat on the truck runningboard eating that melon on an early morning beforebreakfast trip at Rathdrum.

It has been said that if you are looking for adventures,just drive a Model T. Well this truck was no exception. It’seasy to recall many adventures.

One evening when the sun was setting very low, Pa andwe kids were heading home across the prairie on a dirtroad, and approaching the Milwaukee tracks. Suddenly,the engine of the Milwaukee train appeared on the tracksbefore us! No room to spare here, and before we knew it,Pa had yanked the steering wheel a full right turn and wewere crashing down a bank and through a barbwire fenceset up for two corner fence lines. What a tangle that was.We were actually wrapped up in barbwire!

As we watched the train go by, Pa said, “Wonder whatthat train crew thought, watching our truck driving intoall that barbwire!”

Of course, there was the truck to untangle from thefence posts and barb wire before it could be backed outon the road again – that is, after we’d gotten throughshaking!

Some TruckHere’s another adventure: This time Pa rolled the truck

over on a steep hill, and the three of us had to climb outa side window. On a steep pitch, Pa had to catch in theshift linkage. It fell out and left the Ruxtell in neutral. Payanked the parking lever back but it wouldn’t hold any-thing, so here we were flying down the hill backwards inneutral. Now a Model TT is not known for its ease ofsteering while backing up – especially not when racingdownhill backward. Well, Pa was hugging the four-footdirt bank, which was helping some, until a rear wheelfound a track right up the bank, neatly flipping the truckover on it’s side. So the three of us were happy to be ableto crawl out the passenger side window. From there itwas only a short distance home, where we harnessed thehorses, and they had the job of pulling the truck upright.Then I drove the team home, while Pa headed the truckback to the woods for another load. That truck wasn’tphased a bit!

Blackmer TT TruckersThough our young lives were pretty much circled

around that truck, there was nothing unusual about it, TTtrucks were every where, Rathdrum as well. TheBlackmer City Dray was well-known and well-used in thecommunity. It consisted of two Ford open cab trucks,

Photo: Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (L87.1.19459.21)

Carmen Mfg. Co., 1921 k When the twenties were roaring, delivery trucks of all shapes and sizes were partof the city landscape.

16 � Nostalgia Magazine � January 2005

owned and operated by the Blackmer family.Mr. Blackmer, a polio victim I think, could beseen on the street most any time in his wheel-chair, wherever there was any one to talk to.But he had two sons who grew up in the haulingbusiness. There was Max and Rex, and their TTtrucks were a familiar sight on the streets ofRathdrum. We even met them far back in thehills hauling cord wood.

Now I’ve missed the most important figure inthe business – Mrs. Blackmer, owner, manager,and truck driver. A short, hardworking woman,and left-handed, you could tell she meant busi-ness when she took hold of the crank. Thewhole front end would be jumping up and downwhen she started cranking that truck. I alwaysremember her truck for the gas tank she’dmounted on the cowl, just below the windshield.This was to give full gravity feed to avoid back-ing up a hill when low on gas.

LeftoversWith the advent of the new model A cars and

AA trucks in October 1927, the Model T pro-duction era came to end for both cars andtrucks. It was true the whole world had beenwaiting in anticipation for the new model AFords. By 1927, Chevy trucks, as well as GMC,International, Dodge, Graham Brothers, and ofcourse the new Ford AAs, were all coming in strong. Iknow because we watched all these trucks coming off themountain with their log loads. From my desk by theschoolhouse window, I could see the logging road lessthan a hundred feet from the school building. Yes, it wasthe end of an era for the T Ford trucks. At least for haul-ing logs.

So now, what happened to all these leftover TT trucksbehind the barn in every farmyard in the country? Well ofcourse most eventually disintegrated, and that processwas speeded by their great usefulness as parts for everyrepair and construction job imaginable on the ranch. Andthese once old reliables were also used as a play toy forchildren, both large and small, to sit in the cab of a nolonger useful truck just holding the steering wheel. Pre-tending to drive brought many hours of pleasure. Yes, Iwas one of these kids.

Back then, many ranchers needed a wood saw to cuttheir winter’s wood supply. It was handy to have an oldtruck to supply the engine to build one for most do-it-

Grant Lundin ran the Antique Auto Ranch on Dollar Road in the Spokane Valley from 1961-1984. He and his twinbrother Claire used to play piano, guitar, and fiddle for Grange Hall dances.

yourself farmers. Sears and Roebuck’s catalogue couldsupply a circle saw and mandrel.

A truck could be shortened up to recreate a very usefulsmall farm tractor. This kind of project was quite popularduring the 1930s Depression era.

Another purpose for the heavy worm drive rear endwas as a suitable trailer with a bunk for log hauling behindthe new Ford Model AAs in 1928.

By the late 1940s, another use became popular for theworm rear ends. They were quite useful to build cablewinches to load a logging trailer on the back of a log truckon return trips. Ford was now building much bigger,heavier trucks to haul bigger payloads. These recon-structed cable winches were driven by a power takeofffrom the truck transmission.

But the end has not come yet. There are still manyFord TTs running. Some better than ever, because somecollectors have thought enough of them to gather upthose parts thrown away so many years ago, and buildthem back like new again. �

Photo: Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture (L89.81.7)

Clean Conveyance k Trucks with modified bodies left horsesand buggies back in the horse-and-buggy days.