Photos and story by Bob Rigg
The owners Earl “Matt” Mathison and his wife Maudie lived upstairs over the factory on South St. in Long Beach,CA. The factory and the trailers were better known as Southland Trailers. These pictures were taken in the summer of 1952 with my first “Good” camera. Up to that point every photo I took was with some kind of fixed focus box camera. The Argus C 3 (AKA the Brick) was a step-up from the box cameras, and presented quite a learning curve for me at the time.
The company was Mathison Aircraft & Trailer Co. located at 2923 South St., No. Long Beach,CA. The owners name was Earl “Matt” Mathison and his wife went by Maudie. They lived upstairs over the factory on South St. The factory and the trailers were better known as Southland Trailers.
They had 2 models the Runabouts and the Pacemakers. The Runabouts were from 13 to 18 feet long and were targeted to sell for approx. $100.00 per foot. The Pacemakers were from 27 to 29 feet and sold for much more than the $100.00 per foot. The owner, Matt, had bad luck getting paid from trailer lots and dealers so he went to selling “Factory Direct” right out in front of the factory on South Street.
The trailers were very strong and sturdy for their time. The outer bow of the sidewall was made up of 1/4” x 2” x 3’ or 4’ strips of plywood glued and nailed together to form one solid piece from the floor in the front to the floor in the rear of the trailer. They were not the lightest rigs on the road but they were one of the strongest. The aluminum siding came in 4’ x 8’ sheets and all forming was done on the floor break after they had been cut to size on the shear. No pre formed or pre painted stuff here as it had not been invented yet.
There was only room to show about 3 or 4 trailers at a time on this narrow strip. He believed print advertising was a waste of money and word of mouth was the way to go.
My dad, H. B. “Buzz” Rigg, worked full time for the post office and part time in the evenings running all the 12v and 110v wiring in the trailers. He helped get me a job sweeping floors and helping out for the summer of 1952. I was called on to help do many things from laying flooring, hanging cabinets, and sanding the interior of the units in preparation for sanding sealer and varnish. The worst job was getting down in the pit and spraying undercoating on the bottom of the trailers. Our state-of- the-art respirator to be used for spraying undercoating consisted of an adjustable wire frame with an elastic band to fit around your head and used a Kotex pad as a filter to breathe through. One time the guys hid the box of Kotex from me and made me go ask the owner’s wife for a new box. This was a very embarrassing thing for a 16 year old kid to go through and they kidded me about that for the rest of the summer. One thing I will say about working there, I learned as much about life that summer as I did about building trailers. OSHA did not come along until 1971. As you can see from looking at the pictures, there were many of what today would be called workplace violations.
