Being a die hard Studebaker fanatic I thought it would be interesting to own a horse drawn Studebaker. I tried to buy one at a local auction in 1999 but the price was just too high.
In 2001 I was selling some die cast Studebaker horse drawn wagons on ebay. I had one listed and received a response about it telling me they thought it was really cute and they had a full sized Studebaker wagon. I started corresponding with this woman and found she owned a dude ranch in Washington state. Her wagon was for sale as she was moving. The price she gave wasn’t bad but by time I figured in the shipping it was more than I wanted to pay for something, that while very interesting, didn’t have a lot of use. A week later she listed the wagon on ebay and I ended up as the high bidder at about a third of what she had been asking for it. Now I just had to get it home… to Pennsylvania.
I called a few trucking companies but they all quoted me very high prices to ship it. One was almost four thousand dollars and I had no intention of paying that much. The seller was ready to move so I contacted the nearest chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club and found the president who lived in Spokane. We talked and he agreed to go pick up the wagon for me and store it at his home till I could get it.
As luck would have it there was an auction coming up in Tacoma with a lot of Studebakers at it. I would like to have gone but couldn’t get the time off work. It turned out that a friend from Ohio was going and he agreed to bring the wagon back for me for just the cost of fuel and lodging on the return trip. The plan was set. Walt (we’ll call him Walt, since that’s his name,) bought a 1970s Dodge 3/4 ton truck from a local swap sheet and had it waiting for him when he got off the train he took to Washington. He went to where the wagon was and it was loaded in the back of the truck, (yes it fit with the tailgate down). Walt went now to the auction where he bought a 1964 Studebaker Challenger and a 1963 Dodge motor home. He made a tow bar for the car and came across country with the old Dodge truck with the wagon in the back and towing the Challenger. Every time he stopped the caravan he had gathered a crowd ready to talk and look them over.
Once Walt arrived back home I just had to go to his house to pick up the wagon. A month later Walt and his wife flew out to Washington and drove the motor home back.
I now had my horse drawn Studebaker and it was in great shape. I’ve taken it to a few Studebaker meets including one in St Catherines Ontario and just this past spring to Hamburg, New York. Our local chapter hosted a zone meet in 2003 and of course I had it on display there as well. It always gets a lot of attention and of course most people don’t know that Studebaker started out building horse drawn vehicles.
The wagon is a flair box grain wagon that measures almost six feet tall. The history of the wagon is this. It was built in 1881 by Studebaker and sold to a farm in Athol, Idaho. It was used on the farm till 1900 when it got put into the back of the barn and forgotten about and was eventually covered with a pile of dry hay which helped preserve it. The wagon was forgotten till 1997 when the farm was finally sold out of the family. The new owners uncovered the wagon while cleaning the barn and sold it to the dude ranch I bought it from. During the four years it was at the ranch it was repainted but all the wood is original.
At this time it still needs the Studebaker lettering put back on but I did get a picture of the wagon before it was repainted so I have good patterns to use. It doesn’t get out too much these days but it’s still an interesting piece of Studebaker history.
Contents copyright Madd Doodler Publishing 2010
