As the Dayton region loses one legacy business after another from Frigidaire, to Delphi and now NCR it makes one wonder what the next Dayton legacy will be.
Legacies like these are not built overnight, they grow so gradually that most would not realize they have become a legacy until they start to downsize.
Fire destroyed Trotwood’s legacy business back in 1981. Thousands of campers and travel trailers were built on North Broadway for delivery all across the country. Trotwood Trailers were respected for their innovative features and high quality construction. Many still survive today but the company does not.
Now almost 30 years later Trotwood still searches for its new legacy business. Right now, somewhere in town, someone might be inventing something in their garage like Ray Kuntz and Warren Wagner did back in the late 1920’s. These schoolteachers occupied their summers in a garage on Grand Av designing a prototype canvas tent on wheels to take camping.
Despite the economic gloom of the Great Depression in 1932 they opened Trotwood Trailers and by 1950 they grew to control 20% of the camper trailer market in Ohio. There were many models to choose from and one of their largest models can still be seen in the mobile home park on E Main St. It was a regular sight to see 12 trailers rolling out of town every day on their way to customers across North America.
Their neighbors tolerated the pair working long hours from their ‘home office’ not realizing the impact their inventions would have on the trailer world from innovative axle systems to the first side entry door trailer. Like the bar owner in Dayton that invented a cash register to keep his employees honest to the brothers experimenting with aerodynamics with a wind tunnel in their bicycle shop, ideas that become legacies can be born just about anywhere.
No one knows what Trotwood’s next legacy will be but the timing is right to see a new idea nurtured amidst the ashes of the current recession. So the next time you see your neighbor burning the midnight oil offer a little encouragement. They just might be defining the direction of Trotwood’s economic future.
This Trotwood Trailer is the last one located in the mobile home park on East Main St in Trotwood, Ohio. It was being renovated when this picture was taken in August 2009.
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Special thanks to Kurt Flora whose worked for the company at the time of the fire for verifying the dates and other info about Trotwood Trailers in this editorial.
ReplyDeleteThanks for evoking my grandfather's hard work! I am one of Warren Wagner's grand-daughters and remember vividly playing as a little girl in one of his prototype trailers in his garage at 206 Grand Avenue. What a miracle of engineering it was too! I should think that the smallest ones would make a comeback today were they to be re-manufactured...
ReplyDeleteWith affection for Trotwood and its memories,
Alice Jardine
I think I have a Trotwood from 1941, but don't know how to verify the numbers. It was a "field find" in Yreka CA., and a man bought it to restore, supposedly from the original owner, changed his mind, then sold it to another man to restore. That man also changed his mind and sold it to me, all without a title or registration. It has a stamp behind the hitch DR412928T. I would be grateful for a lead. Write to marywalker@workmail.com. Thanks, Mary
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