Truck - Bus - Welcome wagon 1905
by Mike Savad
Title
Truck - Bus - Welcome wagon 1905
Artist
Mike Savad
Medium
Photograph - Colorized Photo
Description
Colorized photo from 1905
Original title: Motor car, Canadian Government Colonization Co.
Photographer: Detroit Publishing
Location: Either Canada or London
Look at this crazy contraption. They built some strange things in the past, I think this would stand out even in Vegas.
This is a Gas-Electric hybrid built by the Commercial Motor Vehicle Co of Windsor Ontario. Each wheel had an electric motor, it was 20ft long and had an 81in track. The four cylinder engine produced 20 HP. The truck was sent to England to visit "every town and village in the country". But because it was so under powered, it never made it out of London, and is presumably left in England.
The truck was sent to London in the early 1900's, it was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The railway got a cut of the profits because people would travel on their trains and steamships.
The signs promised all sorts of wonders, and presumably the truck was filled with Canadian bounty. But I can't imagine how they got fresh food across the ocean quickly.
While it was true that you did receive 160 free acres, they neglected to say that you needed to file a $10 claim (which was roughly $300 in 2020). But they had no money, they spent it all getting there. Plus many didn't know anything about farming at all, they simply left the land after that. And while a 160 acres sounds like a lot, it wasn't enough to support a family.
They were pretty successful getting people over to Canada, but they closed this idea by 1914. Many homesteaders couldn't make it happen, many moved out, and by 1920, the ones that were successful had a terrible drought and it killed everything off. They say today the Canadian prairie provinces are like similar to the ones we have in the US, mostly made of ghost towns.
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July 23rd, 2020
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