1950 Chevrolet pick up near Cowpen Creek
A good pocket knife, a trusty gun and a dependable pick up truck are among the favorite things of many in the South. There's good reason for that in that the utility and history behind each of these items not only speaks to use and need, but to tradition and history. Yet the history of the pick up truck is one that goes to a collision between the past and future in the early 20th century.
Prior to the 1920s, most Southerners who hauled crops to market, lumber to a job site or groceries from the store relied on a wagon and either a horse, mule or oxen to power the apparatus. Yet in the early 1920s, automation and innovation met horsepower head on in Detroit.
Ford produced its "Model T Runabout with Pick up Body," and 20 horsepower engine, in the 1924-25 year. Chevrolet and Dodge followed thereafter. The war years of 1941-1945 proved taxing for the US civilian pick up market due to a high degree of production going to the war effort to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan.
Yet once the war ended, the gas pedal was to the floor on domestic truck production with bigger engines, more powerful trucks, and power steering. With this domestication of the war market to the civilian market came heavy competition between the manufacturers.
Surplus war vehicles also flooded the civilian market. Military surplus trucks saw reincarnated lives as log trucks, rolling stores and farm trucks. Jeeps were used in many applications, including plowing fields.
A side note to the surplus in military vehicles was the mechanization of farming. Local dealerships such as Allis Chalmers saw farmers trading in mules and horse drawn implements for tractor pulled implements. On Page Road, JD Page's father, Zollie Page managed to pick up a set of mule drawn planters extremely cheap at a local dealership. He kept it under his barn and years later this writer used it to plant as many as five acres of peas with this horse drawn technology being pulled by an old Farm All "H" tractor.
With the post war availability of trucks, the "truck farm" bloomed into full production. In many areas a bell pepper buyer would drop off seed and boxes by truck and then come back at regular intervals to pick up the mature product and pay the farmer. The farmer would most likely thereafter head to town on Saturday afternoon in his own pick up, with his kids on the back, and spend a portion of the hard earned money on groceries or other items.
At this juncture of history the past met the future. Many farmers had a lifetime of using wagons, mules and oxen to power their farm and their transportation. Yet now they were meeting a new future on old roads they had known for a lifetime.
This writer's grandfather was already a senior citizen when he obtained his first driver's license. In those days, an Alabama State Trooper could give you a license on the spot if he felt you were proficient in driving. This led to many self taught drivers; one gentleman in the area, in an attempt to teach himself to drive, accidentally hit the gas while in reverse and backed through the back of his barn. This gentleman was Lawrence McKinley and it has been said that he yelled, "Whoa mule!" as the vehicle went out the back of the barn.
Trooper Bill Strickland who lived on Cowpen Creek Road gave Fred McKinley, my grandfather, a driver's license upon him driving his Model A Ford to his home and paying the necessary fee of $1.25. My grandfather had taught himself to drive the car in his front yard on Page Road. In later years, he had an old 1950 Chevrolet pick up and other vehicles and many of my earliest memories are steering the truck while sitting in his lap as a small child in the early 1970s. Today, the cab of that old truck sits along Cowpen Creek like a monument to a forgotten past. No surprise it's still there in that trucks tend to stick around in that my Dad has a 1994 F-150 he bought new, prior to that he had an F-100 for about 15 years and I've kept my Tundra for almost 10 years.
Yep, trucks have a place on a Southern homestead. They're more than trucks, they go with tradition and memories and help make us who we are.
Shadows and Dust Volume III: Legacies is available for purchase in the amount of $30.00+$5.00 shipping and handling to PO Box 579 Atmore, AL 36502 or visit Lulu Publishing.com; Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles.com OR at the Monroe County Heritage Museum in Monroeville, Alabama or by calling 251 294 0293.
