Blog Posts

Dayton Wheels and Fruehauf Trailer wheel components

5/20/2017

Dayton Wheels & Early Fruehauf wheel
component suppliers
By Darlene Norman

While researching wheels that were used on early Fruehauf trailers, my co-author, Darlene Norman chronicled this history. It may be useful to anyone with a trailer pre-WWII. It's pretty interesting...

George Walther (1876-1955) and his brother started their steel foundry in 1905. George felt that the blooming automobile industry was a good direction to point their energies, so they began casting automobile parts for passenger cars. Around 1910 he heard about a new vehicle, trucks. He noticed the wooden wheels not only on automobiles, but also on the first trucks. George heard that the White Motor Co. wanted cast steel wheels and were ordering them from Belgium. He looked at some of those wheels and, based on his knowledge as an engineer, knew that the Belgian wheels would easily break.

The Belgian wheels were 6 or 8 spoked, so George designed his with an uneven number of spokes that could better withstand the stress of carrying heavy loads, etc. His wheels had 5 or 7 spokes. White Motor Co. was the first to use George’s newly patented cast steel wheel for solid rubber tires on December 13, 1913.

When WWI broke out in 1914, the government said they needed better truck wheels. By 1916 George had developed a cast steel, hollow spoke wheel for solid rubber tires. George’s 7 spoke wheel became the standard for the Army’s Class B quartermaster Liberty Trucks, and government four-wheel trailers. The 5 spoke wheel was used on Class A Army trucks.

Companies that stayed with the steel wheels after WWI included Fruehauf Trailer. We found in earlier research, that Fruehauf produced trucks as well as trailers during WWI. By Jan. 1925 the Dayton Steel Foundry had developed a steel wheel for pneumatic tires, as the solid rubber couldn’t withstand the stress of the increasing mileage required of them.

The cast steel wheel for solid rubber tires lasted for about 10 years. In the 1920s the pneumatic tires replaced the solid rubber.

So, I went looking for Dayton’s patents, specifically wheel patents (they also made lots of car parts). George’s first wheel patent was USD45097S, filed April 18, 1913. Here’s a link to that patent, as well as a drawing that, to my untrained eye, looks exactly like Glen’s trailer wheel. Since George had the patent, no one should have been making any that looked that similar that early in wheel history.
https://www.google.com/patents/USD45097

In 1916 George had developed the 5 and 7 spoke wheels (hollow cast) that were used by the Army. We know that by 1925 Dayton was no longer producing wheels for solid rubber tires.

George’s 2nd wheel patent US1346864 filed May 19, 1919, was his first 5 spoke wheel. They were using this in the Army in 1916, 3 years earlier, so he probably took a while to get around to filing the patent. The 5 spoke, and 7 spoke models, were hollow cast. That would mean that earlier 6 spoke model was solid steel, while the 1919 5 and 7 spoke models were hollow. If wheels are solid steel, we know they were made prior to 1916.
https://www.google.com/patents/US1346864

1 Comment

The Automotive Hall of Fame 2017 inductees - August Fruehauf

5/20/2017

1 Comment

August Fruehauf's first semi-trailer. The Detroit blacksmith coined the term semi-trailer when he transformed a wagon into a semi-trailer in 1914

August Fruehauf was the founder of the Fruehauf Trailer Company and is credited with inventing the semi-trailer. Fruehauf was a successful blacksmith and horse carriage builder in Detroit, Michigan, around the turn of the 20th century. In 1914, a client came to Fruehauf asking if he could devise a method of transporting a boat behind a Model T. Fruehauf agreed, and the result was the first Fruehauf semi-trailer. The Fruehauf Trailer Company was founded in 1918 and soon became one of the largest and most successful semi-trailer companies in the world.

1 Comment

Automotive Hall of Fame to induct tractor-trailer pioneer Fruehauf - Hemmings Motor News

5/20/2017

1 Comment

The man who lent his name to the General Motors of the trailer industry will also take a place among the automobile industry’s pioneers later this year as the Automotive Hall of Fame inducts its 2017 class of honorees.

August Fruehauf, as Jim Donnelly wrote in the March 2015 issue of Hemmings Classic Car, “pioneered, in great measure, the modern long-haul truck” by inventing the tag-along semi-trailer and, in the process, triggered the wide-scale distribution of modern consumer goods. A successful blacksmith and wagonbuilder in Detroit and the surrounding area around the turn of the century, Fruehauf built his first trailer in 1914 at the request of a boat owner who wished to transport his craft on dry land behind a Ford Model T. Read more.........

1 Comment

Singing Wheels Strikes again

2/9/2017

2 Comments

with a presentation in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Singing Wheels strikes again as I head to my Michigan for a presentation on the history of the Fruehauf Trailer Company. Please join us Sunday, February 12th at the Bloomfield Hills Public Library, Lone Pine and Telegraph at 3pm.

2 Comments

The Fruehauf Engineering Story is released

11/29/2016

0 Comments

The Fruehauf Engineering Story, The historical perspective of an American industry and its technological innovations illustrated by advertising, 1914-1997 ISBN-13: 978-0578186870

Ruth Fruehauf and Darlene Norman are delighted to announce the release of their new book, The Fruehauf Engineering Story. This illustrated history of the Fruehauf Trailer Company chronicles the innovations, inventions and engineering achievements of a great American Company using photographs, advertisements and other anecdotes to bring this lost information to life. 81 pages of photographs and text will entertain you and your family.

0 Comments

Trailer Body Builder invites you to a Reunion

5/10/2016

0 Comments

The Detroit Historical Museum is exhibiting a large display of memorabilia from the heyday of Fruehauf Trailer, and a 1916 Fruehauf semi-trailer that was built using the blacksmith tools of that time is on display at the nearby Piquette Street plant where Henry Ford once produced Model T cars.
Former Fruehauf employees will be visiting these two facilities this summer during a reunion June 10-12. A slide presentation at the Piquette Street Plant by Ruth Fruehauf, daughter of Roy Fruehauf, will feature many of the company’s inventions, product developments and manufacturing techniques. Read more......

Please comment

0 Comments

Heavy Duty Trucking invites you to a Fruehauf Reunion!

5/8/2016

1 Comment

By Tom Berg - Trailer Talk

Students of trucking history are well aware of Fruehauf trailers, as that Detroit-based company once dominated the industry. They know the story of its origin by August Fruehauf, as recalled last year by his granddaughter, Ruth:
“It has been 101 years since Frederick M. Sibley, a Michigan lumber tycoon, walked into August Fruehauf’s blacksmith shop in Detroit with a problem. Sibley had an 18-foot boat he needed to haul to his summer cottage. He’d put the boat on a wagon, and he wanted to use his Model T Ford instead of a horse team to pull it. Could that be done? Read more........

1 Comment

Sweden's Klassiska Truck Magazine covers Fruehauf

5/5/2016

1 Comment

What a great article posted in the Swedish publication, Klassiska. The layout is terrific and I love that they used so many photos. The author Sven-Erik Lindstrand is a super pro editor/writer who I met at MAT's in Louisville last year. It's too bad I can't read Swedish.

1956 Post Cereal and the Fruehauf Trailer company

5/2/2016

2 Comments

In 1956 Post Cereal Company offered a free collection of toy Fruehauf Trailers manufactured by the F&F Mold and Die works of Dayton Ohio. The collection included five varieties of Fruehauf truck trailers, freight van, moving van, tanker, gooseneck and flatbed. All five models were produced in four different colors; yellow, orange, red, metallic aluminum. Each Model also came with either black or white wheels. The entire collection in the series totaled forty vehicles. All of these models could be found inside Post Grape-nuts Flakes boxes.

C&G News writes about our museum exhibit!

5/2/2016

0 Comments

Family historian and author Ruth Ann Fruehauf stands in front of a Detroit Historical Museum showcase that looks at the Fruehauf Trailer Company, which revolutionized the transportation of goods through the creation of the semi-trailer and many other inventions. (Photo by K. Michelle Moran)

By Michelle Moran - DETROIT — Global trade is so normal now, we take it for granted, but the transportation and sale of goods over long distances might have never been a modern reality were it not for a couple of men with local ties.

When lumber industry leader Frederick M. Sibley needed a way to haul an 18-foot boat to his lakefront Michigan summer home with a Ford Model T in 1914, he turned to the inventive minds of blacksmith and wagon maker August “Gus” Fruehauf and his business partner, Otto Neumann. A horse-drawn wagon would take days to make the trip, but Fruehauf and Neumann were able to modify the Model T and attach a trailer that could handle this heavy load. Thus was born the semi-trailer, an invention that paved the way for interstate and international trade as we know it today. Read more.......

0 Comments

<<Previous

Forward>>

Dayton Wheels and Fruehauf Trailer wheel components

Dayton Wheels & Early Fruehauf wheel
component suppliers
By Darlene Norman

The Automotive Hall of Fame 2017 inductees - August Fruehauf

Automotive Hall of Fame to induct tractor-trailer pioneer Fruehauf - Hemmings Motor News

Singing Wheels Strikes again

with a presentation in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

The Fruehauf Engineering Story is released

Trailer Body Builder invites you to a Reunion

Heavy Duty Trucking invites you to a Fruehauf Reunion!

By Tom Berg - Trailer Talk

Sweden's Klassiska Truck Magazine covers Fruehauf

1956 Post Cereal and the Fruehauf Trailer company

C&G News writes about our museum exhibit!

The advancement of transportation accelerated the economic growth of all industries in the industrial booming United States. The Fruehauf Trailer Company contributed to the advancement of American industry.

Authors

Archives

Categories

PLEASE CLICK ON TITLES WHICH ARE HYPERLINKED TO OTHER TOPICS

We are Social

Dayton Wheels & Early Fruehauf wheel ​component suppliers​By Darlene Norman

with a presentation in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

By Tom Berg - Trailer Talk

The advancement of transportation accelerated the economic growth of all industries in the industrial booming United States. The Fruehauf Trailer Company contributed to the advancement of American industry.

Authors

Archives

Categories

PLEASE CLICK ON TITLES WHICH ARE HYPERLINKED TO OTHER TOPICS

We are Social

Dayton Wheels & Early Fruehauf wheel
component suppliers
By Darlene Norman