NEWS

'Old Transport' takes a 105-year journey to Homecoming

Farm truck built in Mount Pleasant lives out retirement in ET building

An antique truck painted black with red wheels sits behind a red crowd control tape inside a building. — A truck called "Old Transport" by its previous owners started its 105-year life in a manufacturing facility on Pickard Street in Mount Pleasant

The journey of one of this year’s Homecoming parade participants lasted 105 years. The vehicle began its journey in Mount Pleasant, later spending much of its life over two generations on a South Dakota farm, where it came to be known as “Old Transport.”

“Old Transport” was built in 1920 by the Transport Truck Company in what today is the Commerce Center. The company was in business from 1918 to 1925, said Ron Bloomfield, director of Central Michigan University’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History.

Two people sit in the cab of an antique truck that is outside on a sunny day. — Sam Staples, who bought "Old Transport" in the early 1990s, donated it to Central Michigan University in 2017.

It’s not clear how “Old Transport” made the journey from Pickard Street to the Great Plains. The 1.5-ton truck is listed as 473 on its manufacturers plate.

The Transport Truck Company was one of dozens of small vehicle manufacturers that sprung up in the wake of World War I, Bloomfield said. As far as anyone knows, it’s the only company that built trucks in Mount Pleasant.

Companies like Transport Truck Company built vehicles using what were essentially surplus parts from the war. Companies sold their vehicles locally, through agents or in advertisements shared across the nation.

“Old Transport” found itself a farm truck in Chamberlain, South Dakota, according to letters sent to Sam Staples. Staples, who owned the Commerce Center, donated it to CMU in 2017. Staples was given the John Cumming Isabella County Historical Preservation Award in 2018. Cumming was a longtime director of the Clarke Historical Library.

Percy Gunderson was one of the correspondents. He wrote to Staples that his father bought the truck from a town seven miles away from their farm. He didn’t specify a date, but he mentioned that they used the truck during the 1941 grain harvest.

An old newspaper advertisement for a transport truck. — The company that built "Old Transport" started production of trucks shortly after the end of World War I, and sold them across the country through agents and newspaper ads.

“The ‘Old Transport’ was always special for me,” he wrote. “I remember back to the years of my childhood. My dad used to let me tag along; he’d take me to town to sell grain from the fall harvest season or he’d take a load of pigs in the back rack he had made for the transport box.”

One attractive aspect of the Transport Truck Company’s trucks was their versatility, Bloomfield said. They were essentially a truck frame that owners could modify to meet their needs. The transport box could be made to haul farm goods, oil or lumber.

Another truck from Transport Truck Company was donated to the city of Mount Pleasant as a fire truck, he said. A different truck used as a fire truck in Luddington now sits in front of the public safety building on High Street. As far as Bloomfield knows, those are two of the four Transport Truck Company trucks that survive.

Gunderson wrote to Staples about using “Old Transport” to move coal and wood for winter heating, and that it performed poorly in the mud. They’d also need to lift the windshield up to let air into the cab on hot days.

He wrote that he sold it to another South Dakota resident in the 1960s and said that his sons were saddened to lose that piece of family history.

Staples bought the truck from an estate near Dowagiac in the early 1990s and started rehabilitating it, Bloomfield said. According to a letter from Percy’s wife Edna, Staples called the Gundersons about the truck. Percy expressed happiness in his letter.

“I’m glad the Old Transport is in the home it deserves,” he wrote. “It gave my dad and me many years of real enjoyment.”

Its home is currently on the south end of the Industrial and Engineering Technology building, where it’s been since 2023, Bloomfield said.

Between 2017 and 2023, it bounced around a couple of locations on the north side of town, where museum staff could slowly refit it, but beyond the public’s ability to appreciate it.

Museum staff hope to slowly fix what ails “Old Transport.” They repaired a leak in the gas tank, which happens to sit under the driver’s seat, and Bloomfield said he’d like to get an oil leak fixed before they can actually drive it.

Right now, they manually load it onto a trailer and pull it behind a truck for special events like Homecoming. The dream is to turn it into something more than a static display, Bloomfield said. There’s a significant hurdle to that, however.

“The problem is finding someone who can work on something of this vintage,” he said.