You never really know what you'll find...

In June 2012, my wife Diane and I took a holiday drive down to explore the Oregon coast. Sadly, the weather was mostly not conducive to walks along the beach marvelling at the scenery. Cold, wet, and fog, these were the operative words. After toughing it out for a few days we decided to pull the plug and come home.
A day into our return trip, we'd gotten away from the coast and were enjoying the sights of the Columbia River Valley. Our route took us east and we eventually got on to Highway 97 to take us north back to Canada and home. The weather made great strides – we were now enjoying clear blue skies and warm temperatures.
We were cruising along quite nicely and Toppenish Washington was the next town we would encounter. "We've got to turn around!" I shouted, applying the brakes, looking for a sideroad to do so. When Diane asked why, I said, "We just passed the biggest old car boneyard I've ever seen!" There were literally piles of old cars and parts taking up acres of space beside the road. I gingerly walked in the driveway and knocked on the door of the house on the property, hoping to gain permission to take some photos. Unfortunately there was no answer, so on the way back to the car I took as many quick pics as I dared. Here's one taken from the road – as you can see there's one heck of a lot of vintage tin sitting here.

Recently, I had another look at these photos and my shots of several very large, very old, very strange-looking flatbed trucks, all bearing the name 'Curtis Publishing Company' caught my eye. After I'd worked up an interesting picture of one of the more complete trucks, I thought I should find some historical information on these vehicles. Google, what have you got?

Well, it turns out the Curtis Publishing Company (which published several magazines, including: Jack and Jill, Holiday, Ladies Home Journal, and Saturday Evening Post). Starting around 1910, they used a fleet of twenty-two of these trucks to deliver their periodicals throughout Philadelphia PA. These ELECTRIC trucks were built by the 'Commercial Truck Company' also of Philadelphia. 

The trucks silently plied the streets of the city at night dropping off bundles of magazines to all the newsstands. They carried a payload of ten tons, and although they had a top speed of only 12 mph (unloaded) and 6 mph with a full load. They were so successful at their task, the Curtis Company used them up until 1962 – absolutely amazing!

Here's a  copy of my digital painting of this wonderful old beast... hope you like it. 

I had fun doing an image of this downright goofy old truck. It's so weird-looking, I couldn't help liking it. If you want to know more about the history of these early electric vehicles, just google the Curtis Publishing Company or the Commercial Truck Company. In closing, here's a picture of a fully-restored Model F-5...