The scene is at the only Miller Brewing plant in the nation at the time, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The two guys are icing up a reefer, no doubt to keep a cross country shipment of beer from spoiling. (Appears to be summer, as at least one guy is in short sleeves and the building windows are open. Notice the empty beer cases stacked inside.) The truck is a 1937 International. Although the scissors apparatus served this icing function well, it’s primary function was to facilitate residential coal delivery. Most houses at the time had a coal bin in the basement, accessible by a window to the outside. If the truck could get close enough, the deliveryman would attach a steel chute from the hopper to the window, trip a trap door in the hopper and let the product flow by gravity. If the truck could not be so arranged, the hopper would be raised and the coal dumped into canvas baskets. Those baskets would then be carried on the delivery guys shoulder and dumped into the basement...one at a time.
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM89045
https://content.mpl.org/digital/collection/HstoricPho/id/10440/
The scene is at the only Miller Brewing plant in the nation at the time, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The two guys are icing up a reefer, no doubt to keep a cross country shipment of beer from spoiling. (Appears to be summer, as at least one guy is in short sleeves and the building windows are open. Notice the empty beer cases stacked inside.)
ReplyDeleteThe truck is a 1937 International. Although the scissors apparatus served this icing function well, it’s primary function was to facilitate residential coal delivery. Most houses at the time had a coal bin in the basement, accessible by a window to the outside. If the truck could get close enough, the deliveryman would attach a steel chute from the hopper to the window, trip a trap door in the hopper and let the product flow by gravity. If the truck could not be so arranged, the hopper would be raised and the coal dumped into canvas baskets. Those baskets would then be carried on the delivery guys shoulder and dumped into the basement...one at a time.
THANK YOU! Great info!
DeleteSay, what's your 1st name, I only know you by your initials, and that's fine if you choose to stay that way, but as I added a Thank You! To the post title, I thought, huh, maybe he'd rather be thanked by his 1st name.
So, let me know which you'd prefer
rlk, aka Bob. After years of using my initials endlessly to authorize all kind of railroad stuff the moniker stuck. Friends I worked with still refer to me as rlk in correspondence, as I do to them with their initials...tpl in Houston comes to mind. My guess is the tradition started long ago when train dispatcher initials were substituted for their name to save a little time copying each train order.
ReplyDeleteOne other note about the picture I didn’t notice before. On the aft end of the raised hopper you can seen a metal loop. That’s where the delivery fella’s kept their canvas baskets when handling coal.
BTW...Did I ever say how much I enjoyed Just a Car Guy?
Which do you prefer for thanks?
DeleteOh, so that's what those were for!
Well, I don't recall, but thank you! It's a mutual admiration thing!
Many thanks to RLK. I sold motor trucks for much of my work career. I also would contract for equipment for the trucks for customers not savvy about their total needs. Love these histories!
ReplyDelete