Archive of 22 original photographs relating to the Winther Motor Truck Company, circa early 1920s

Kenosha, WI: Winther Motor Company, Circa early 1920s. Archive of 22 vintage photographs relating to the Winther Motor Truck Company, including 18 linen-backed keybook photographs compiled in a generic keybook photograph album, 15 of which are early 1920s Winther fire trucks, an impressive 6-print panoramic photograph (contemporaneously adhered together on the versos with linen tape) of Winther's production of 63 Militor trucks at Winther's Kenosha, Wisconsin plant, for the US Army in 1921, and two loose photographs, one of a front view of an unidentified Winther truck, and one linen-backed photograph of a Boyer Fire Apparatus Company fire truck, circa 1923. Four of the keybook photographs have blind stamps for "Lutz Studio / East Moline."

The Winther Motor and Truck Company was founded in 1916 by engineer and inventor Martin P. Winther in Kenosha, Wisconsin, manufacturing trucks and other vehicles for industry and the military, as well as lighter vehicles for firefighting, logging, and snowplowing. In 1921, the company opened a second plant in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois, about ten miles from Kenosha. In 1921 the Winther Motor Truck delivered the militarily in-demand Militor trucks, under a procurement contract from Militor Motor Corporation, which could not fulfill the US Army order, to the US Army (seen in the panoramic photograph in the archive on offer here), which supplied the vehicles largely for the Army artillery, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The company was reincorporated in 1923 as the Winther Motor Company, and again in 1926 as the Kenosha Fire Engine and Truck Company, focusing on the firefighting vehicles found in the archive here. The company was sold in 1927, and in 1932 Winther formed the Dynamic Corporation, manufacturing drive machines for Pullman air conditioning systems.

Among the locations identified by the fire trucks in the archive are: Lebanon and Logan, Ohio; East Moline, Highland Park, and St. Louis, Illinois; Kiel and Kenosha Wisconsin; and Logansport, Indiana.

Key Book photographs, 7.75 x 10.75 inches, with some faint soiling, else Near Fine, bound internally with gold brads in a Good 12.5 x 9 inch keybook photograph album, with moderate edgewear, and chipping and creasing at the extremities.

Panoramic photograph assemblage: six photographs attached on the versos contemporaneously with linen tape, 8 x 54.5 inches. Very Good plus, with some faint toning and light edgewear.

Two loose photographs, one Near Fine, backed with linen, and one Very Good plus, with two small chips to the top right corner and right side.

[Book #162950]