American Ingenuity

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Right: This early catalog cover emphasized the interest of the folding wagon box to farmers, ranchers and businessmen alike.

"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door," or so the saying goes. In the early 1900s, the American Wagon Co. was one of several firms testing that philosophy by offering a new twist on an old design. Wagon boxes, the cargo-hauling portion of a horse-drawn wagon, were the company's specialty. Believing necessity to really be the mother of invention, American was perfecting some of the most visibly significant changes to farm wagons in close to a half-century. Between 1905 and 1909, the company secured at least two patents on their creations. Internal enthusiasm and faith in the product's success was high. But, in just over a decade, the wheels of progress would take a hard turn.

Putting ideas to work

Based in Dixon, Ill., in 1911, American brought a promise of greater prosperity to the area. Sales offices were maintained in nearby Chicago, and catalog rhetoric indicated that more manufacturing sites were being contemplated to meet the growing demand. According to period accounts in the Dixon Evening Telegraph, the old Grand Detour wagon plant had been remodeled to meet the needs of the newly arrived company. As the nation celebrated its 135th birthday, the factory officially began manufacturing in Dixon on July 5, 1911.

The company's name implies that the firm was involved in full-scale wagon production. However, the box (often called the bed) was the only part of the wagon that the organization actually manufactured. But the American Wagon Co.'s box was far from ordinary and, in many ways, typical of the agricultural inventive genius prevalent during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Farmers, ranchers and businesses of the day needed different wagon beds to haul different types of payloads. Most wagons met this requirement with designs that allowed the box to be lifted off the running gear and replaced with a different rack or bed as the need arose. For some, though, this type of traditional wagon design offered a less-than-adequate solution to hauling multiple varieties of cargo.

At issue were the added time and money involved in adjusting the wagon to meet every need. In order to help its customers avoid the difficult and costly exercise of buying or building different beds and frequently changing them, the American Wagon Co. marketed just one box that satisfied more than a dozen common uses. So, whether the farmer needed a hay rack to bring in loose hay from the field, a stock rack for hauling livestock, a corn wagon with built-in bang boards, a flax-tight grain wagon, an enclosed box for transporting poultry, or even a custom rig with ladder-back seats to carry a couple dozen folks to a Sunday afternoon church picnic, these quick-changing boxes catered to almost every need a rural farmer and businessman might encounter.