Old News Articles Research Archives

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1953 Article on 1/2 Scale Jeep for Daughters

• CATEGORIES: Features, Models, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

Andy McIntyre built this model jeep with ingenuity and scavenged parts to help teach his two daughters, Ann and Phyllis, how to drive and use hand signals. He also planned to introduce them to local law enforcement. Eventually, he wanted to teach all the kids how to properly drive, as he noted in the article “Children of today are born into an age of speed … Everyone needs to sharpen his wits to keep step with this age of machines.” It sounds like Andy and his wife raised their girls to be tough and independent!

It sounds like the family had a third daughter, Joy, who passed away in 2008, proceeded by the deaths of her parents Andy and Cora McIntyre. The older sisters, Ann and Phyllis, were still alive as of 2008.

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August 16, 1953, article in The Independent Record, out of Helena, Montana.

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The “Jeep Club” of El Paso, Texas

• CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

A January 18, 1953, article in the El Paso Times shared the story of seven young men who formed “the jeep club”. There was no fancy name attached to it. They guys liked to explore the surrounding mountains, hunt jack rabbits, trap coyotes, and play with their jeeps.

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On the same page as the jeep article was an article about the first mail route in the United States, one that operated between Roswell and Torrance, New Mexico. The mail (and the occasional passengers) were ferried on the YELLOW DEVIL, an assemblage of discarded auto parts; that kind of sounds like a few jeeps I’ve known.

Obviously, this article was written before the aliens reached Roswell, because, rather than known for “progress of modern development (was it really known for that?)”, it’s pretty much famous for other-worldly visitors.

Make sure to reach the final story, one in the far right lower corner. Need rats for an experiment? One scientist discovered an easy way to get them …

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A CJ-2A Joins the Circus Ballet

• CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

This photo from July 04, 1946, in the Portola Register (out of Portola, California) shows famed clown Emmet Kelly helping Aileen Darnay step out of a CJ-2A, a jeep that was new to the circus. I wonder if the “WILLYS JEEP” painted on the hood was a form of advertising that reduced the cost of the jeep to the circus?

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1957 Article on Wheeler-Walker’s Printshot

• CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

This April 30, 1957, article highlights the speedy service it’s red-themed jeeps and other delivery vehicles make possible. Attempts to learn more about this shop were unsuccessful, as there is a singer from the region named Wheeler Walker, so his stuff dominates the search returns.

Clipping from The Miami News - Newspapers.com

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Chimpanzees and Battery Powered Jeeps

• CATEGORIES: Advertising & Brochures, Features, Old Images, Old News Articles, Postcards • TAGS: This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

UPDATE: A newspaper article from May 20, 1950, published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, provides more information about the jeep-driving circus chimp named Nero. He passed away later in the year.
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Originally Posted January of 2013: This 1950 postcard shows some chimpanzees driving a battery powered jeep.  They were part of a Chimpanzee show at the St. Louis zoo started in 1925. Chimps were taught to ride bicycles, tricycles, motorcycles, ponies, a Great Dane, and more. You can learn more about them in the January 8, 1951, issue of Life Magazine.

“VINTAGE POSTCARD – CONDITION: VG. DATE/ERA: 1950s-60s. Standard Size 3.5×5.5.”

View all the information on eBay

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You can view some additional pictures at Jalopy Journal (scroll part way down the page). The quality seems good enough that they may be from Life Magazine, but I tried, but failed to locate their original source. Here is one of the images.

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On December 13, 1950, several newspapers announced that Nero had passed away. Here’s an article from the Southern Illinoisan:

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1951 Article w/ Jeep Helping Circus

• CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images, Old News Articles • TAGS: This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

This May 10, 1951, article  in the Abilene Reporter-News shows a newly acquired MB/GPW hoisting a circus tent for the Gainesville Community Circus. The jeep was modified to drive stakes, pull stakes, and hoist canvas. Though the circus had been active since the 1930s, this May event was the first time the circus had travelled outside the Gainesville, Texas, area, according to the article at the bottom of the post. Three years later, in 1954, the circus was destroyed by fire.

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Six months earlier, this November 11, 1950, article appeared in Billboard Magazine:

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Newspaper Delivery by Jeep

• CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

The Statesville Record and Landmark newspaper out of Statesville, North Carolina, described in the December 29, 1955, issue how up to eight jeeps are used to make sure rural customers received their newspapers, summer or winter, through rain, snow, or sleet.

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1965 Article on Jeeping in Colorado

• CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

A CJ-V35/U landed on the front page of the Leisuretime Magazine, published by the Gazette Telegraph out of Colorado Springs, Colorado, on August 07, 1965. It looks like the  jeep has been modified with a taller radiator (and perhaps another engine), which apparently led to the lack of a hood.

For the story, the writer spent some time with the Mountain Airs Citizen Band Radio Club (not the catchiest of names). I didn’t realize that CB clubs were a ‘thing’, but there was even a magazine dedicated to that group of folks called S9. Here’s an example from 1966 (one in which the Mountain Airs’ name appears somewhere): https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-CB-Radio/S9-Magazine/S9-1966-05.pdf.

Below is the Gazette Telegraph article:

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