First produced in 1938 by Sy and Rose Mair in Orange County, California, Chinook was among the oldest U.S. brand names in the RV industry. Over the next thirty years, the family-run business of Mair & Son, Inc. would relocate to Union Gap, Washington where they would build small travel trailers, pickup campers and chassis mounts that went on a one-ton cab chassis.
It was during the early 1950s and 60s that the first mass-produced motor-homes started appearing on the road, with some of the early models looking like a cross between a slide-in camper and a motor-home. These Class C motor-homes were actually constructed on a truck chassis. Fabricators ordered trucks without the traditional bed and added their own creation, a practice that is essentially still done today.
Despite a devastating fire that all but destroyed their Union Gap facility on June 19, 1967, the company managed to rise from the ashes via the introduction of the Chinook 1400 chassis mount, cab over Class C motor-home followed by the Chinook 2200 and 2500 Vista/Brougham, the company’s first and only fully self-contained Class A motor-homes.
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