Family photos of camping trips and trailers before they were vintage are always my favorite. I love discovering them, looking at them, and sharing them in the magazine. The only thing better is getting the trailer to go with them! We recently acquired this trailer from Donna Eitel in Northern, California.
Donna’s folks bought the 1955 Shasta trailer in 1963. Before that, they rented little trailers to go camping. Over the years, there were three versions of the Roy Barton, Jr. family that used the Shasta. When Donna’s mother passed away in 1968, the family and new step siblings continued to use the trailer. “All of us kids have great memories of time spent camping in the Shasta,” remembered Donna. The Bartons lived in Glendale, California, where the trailer lived under a roof constructed especially for it from 1963 to 1986.
Donna said, “I remember us taking the trailer to locations in California including, Angeles Crest, Joshua Tree, Painted Gorge, the Sierras, Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon, Big Sur, and the Mojave Desert. We almost never camped in established campgrounds; my dad’s thing was to get away from people. My sister and I just had each other to play with and explore with – only once do I remember being in a campground where there were other children to play with. Looking at camping pictures from this period, my sister and I look little hobo children in our camping clothes!”
“1969-1971 I remember taking the trailer to Mt. Lassen and to Big Sur. I’m sure there were a few trips to the desert in there as well. After 1973, I can only remember a few trips to the desert with the motorcycles and the Shasta. I was old enough to drive by this time. I remember that at least one time, I drove the 62 Studebaker pulling a trailer of motorcycles, and my dad drove his pickup pulling the Shasta. There was one time in the middle of the desert that we were on a dirt road with a drop off on one side that had such a sharp turn we couldn’t get around it with the trailer attached. I can’t really remember details, but I remember having the Shasta unhitched and all of us attempting to push it around the curve ourselves – and being afraid we were going to lose it over the edge of the road. The trailer served as a guest bedroom for a spell. Dad and our stepmother continued to use the Shasta for a few more years, I remember that they took it up into Oregon for a few weeks in 1981,” Donna reminisced.
She went on to say, “We took it to Markleeville a couple of times for Charly to ride the Markleeville Death Ride. And then, in 1992, Charly stopped doing construction and went back to school. We no longer had a vehicle to pull the trailer with, so it sat unused for a few years – and it began to deteriorate in the moist Eureka, CA climate.”
The little Shasta remained under a carport that saved the trailer even in the moist ocean air. The wheels and tires rusted/rotted off, and the skins are a little pitted, but we are excited to have rescued an early wingless Shasta.
