TRAILER PARKS

TRAILER PARKS began to appear in the 1920s as roads improved and Americans enjoyed a fascination with motoring and highway travel as leisure pursuits. Trailers were originally designed for recreational uses such as family camping or adventure. Industry pioneers began designing vehicles for their own families, and soon found themselves manufacturing and selling house trailers. Informal sites where motorists towing house trailers could park and live in a community of other travelers were formed independently, and as the number of trailer campers increased, the need for specially designated campgrounds arose. These were originally established as free municipal facilities but they soon became fee facilities in order to discourage the poor and limit users to a tourist population.

Tourists were not the only people using house trailers, however, and by 1936 an estimated one million people were living in them for part or all of the year.

Eventually the industry split; house trailers produced for travel became recreational vehicles (RVs) while mobile homes were produced specifically as dwellings.

During World War II a boom occurred in trailer living among military and construction workers who followed jobs and assignments. The postwar housing crisis perpetuated the popularity of trailers as dwellings. In the 1950s, trailer parks evolved into communities intended for permanent dwelling rather than as tourist parks, while RV campgrounds replaced the original trailer parks.

Trailer parks are frequently associated with tornadoes. That is because mobile homes are destroyed more easily and, therefore, in greater numbers than more structurally substantial houses.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Santiago, Chiori. "House Trailers Have Come a Long Way, Baby." Smithsonian 29, no. 3 (June 1998): 76–85.

Thornburg, David A. Galloping Bungalows: The Rise and Demise of the American House Trailer. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1991.

Wallis, Allan D. Wheel Estate: The Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.