 |
| Old Trusty Catalog From 1918 (click picture for enlarged view) |
I was at a flea market a few years back, and it was on a table marked 'FREE." I would have easily paid five bucks for it. But there it was—a gift for this Deliberate Agrarian.
To the average person it's just a dirty, old, rotting incubator catalog, but to me it's 106 pages of forgotten agrarian history.
 |
| (click picture for enlarged view) |
It so happened that Old Trusty incubators were a big deal 100 years ago. They were a big deal because they were money-making machines for a lot of enterprising farm folks (and some city dwellers too), as you will learn from future blog posts here. But first, here are the incubators...
 |
| (click picture for enlarged view) |
 | |
|
Many years ago, I had a chance to get an Old Trusty incubator like you see in the above picture—made out of California Redwood! I didn't know it was California redwood at the time, and I had no place to put the thing, so, sad to say, it ended up in a dumpster. Had I known it was redwood, I'm sure I would have salvaged the wood. It was free for the taking!
In my next Old Trusty post, I will show you the Old Trusty factory in Clay Center, Nebraska. It was something!
And I'll share other interesting things from this old catalog, including lots of great old photographs, like this one...
 | |
|
Yes, indeed, folks back then were "mighty well pleased" with their Old Trusty incubators.
Stay tuned for Part 2...
There is something about old catalogs that makes them a joy to read.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting! I used to live near Clay Center, NE and they always had Ole Trusty Days, but I never knew where it came from.
ReplyDeleteNeat. I checked out the Old Trusty days web site but couldn't find any Old Trusty history. Too bad. Seems like they ought to have a museum.
DeleteTrying again.....
ReplyDeleteHerrick,
Archive.org has many many old text like farmer's almanacs and seed catalogs. Just hit the 'Texts' book icon in the upper left, then select 'All Texts'. Put in your search terms and enjoy, I know I have....
Hi Bruce,
DeleteI've been there but never saw the old almanacs. Very nice. I'm going to spend some time looking through those. Here is a hot link for anyone else who might be interested: Old Almanacs
I was doing some tidying up on my computer today and ran across a file on old incubators. Check out the February 1944 Popular Mechanics Pages 121-127 You should be able to find it on google books. This should get you there:
ReplyDeletehttps://books.google.com/books?id=n90DAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=121&f=false
One of the incubators uses an old lamp for its heat source.