February 18, 1946

February 1946. World War II is over and wartime production jobs were ending. During the war, Carl and Georgie worked a number of jobs in several places, finishing the war in Pocatello, Idaho. They elected to return to Iowa, where they both had family, but opted to make a grand tour of the west on the way. Georgie wrote a journal of the trip. This is that story.

Left Mountain Home the next morning – the weather was cold and sunny – still a lot of snow.  About 20 miles from Boise, we broke the spring bolt on the trailer.  Carl fixed it with a rope and when we got to Boise, we hunted up a machine shop and had a new spring made.  Ate lunch downtown in Boise and shopped – bought a tire for the trailer. 

Part 23 is probably the bolt that broke. We don’t know that this was the trailer they had, but it was similar.

Went to see the State Capital – looked at the exhibits in the hall and went through the Museum which is in the basement.  Drove out Warm Springs Avenue and saw the beautiful homes there that are heated by naturally hot spring water.  Saw the Idaho State Penitentiary which is at the end of Warm Springs Avenue.

Google (ND) [Directions form Mountain Home, ID, to Ontario, OR] Retrieved Jan. 27, 2021.

Drove to Nampa where the landscape was similar to that of Iowa- everything under cultivation and many orchards. Went through Caldwell, Fruitland and then into Oregon and stopped at Ontario for the night. Stayed at a very nice tourist camp.

Walt’s Comments

I can’t say for sure that their trailer was an Allstate brand – never mind the model shown in the parts list. But a lot of them used a similar suspension arrangement to the Allstate, and it’s easy to see why Carl would need a new spring as well as a bolt: that spring would have gone flying when the bolt broke. It wouldn’t have been unusual to go to a machine shop for a new spring at the time. As a machinist, Dad may have made a few himself.

What is a single wheel trailer?

Almost every trailer you see these days has at least a pair of wheels supporting it, and is attached to the tow vehicle by a single, rotating point, usually a ball and socket joint. This joint allows the trailer to swivel relative to the tow vehicle, and also swivel up and down enough to negotiate uneven terrain.

A single wheel trailer, on the other hand, has only one wheel, which trails behind the cargo box. This wheel is arranged like the castors on an office chair, or the front wheels of a shopping cart, in that it can swivel in any direction, and the axle of the wheel naturally rides behind the swivel point. The trailer is attached to the rear of the tow vehicle at two points. These are hinged to allow up and down travel, to negotiate terrain, but they prevent the trailer from swiveling from side to side. The pivoting all happened with the rear castor wheel.

Proponents claim that single wheel trailers are easier to back up than conventional trailers, and that when going around corners they track wider than the tow vehicle, rather than tighter, as a conventional trailer would.

As to why Carl and Georgie had one, I can’t say. The Allstate brand was sold by Sears, so it may have simply been easier to get a single wheel than a conventional. Then too, tires were in very short supply during WWII. So a trailer that only needed one tire would have been pretty nice. And the purported advantages in handling would have been appealing to Dad, in particular if he envisioned Mom driving at times.

Single wheel trailers aren’t nearly as popular as they once were, but they haven’t completely disappeared. They are still being made today.

Digging Deeper

http://www.singlewheel.com/ intends “to be the most comprehensive, informational single wheel trailer site on the internet.” As far as I can find, they have succeeded. Most of what I found was from there, and other sites discussing the trailers all linked to there.

The Fastmaster company still makes single wheel trailers, as well as dual wheeled trailers that operate on the same principle, with the two wheels swiveling independently from one another. – Usual disclaimer applies, I have never had any association with this company, nor have I been their customer.