Travel with the Heyer Family on their epic 1921 cross country camping trip in a new book
“In the summer of 1921, the Heyer family took a four-month camping trip to see America. Their journey would take them across barren plains, alkali deserts and over the Rocky Mountains. Arthur Heyer, the patriarch (and Charles E. Heyer’s grandfather) led the family, including wife Louise and sons Clifford, Earl, Laurence, and Chester, keeping a journal daily. The older boys took photos and mounted them in their albums. Almost three quarters of a century later, we discovered the materials in a box in my mother’s closet….”
Arthur Provost Heyer was an entrepreneur, inventor, and outdoorsman. Just the sort of guy who would make an adventurous cross country journey from Montclair to California and back again in 1921 (100 years ago this summer!) with his wife Louise and four sons in a vehicle towing a trailer (which he designed and built), over roadways..and ditches and streams and narrow switchback roads…and deserts and mountains. Thanks to his grandson, Charles Heyer, we can read all about it in The Heyer Family Camping Journal – the diary of Arthur, with incredible photos by his teenage sons. If you would like to purchase a copy ($20) of this fascinating travelogue, contact Charles Heyer at Charles.heyer@verizon.net
The Montclair History Center is delighted to have a copy of the book in our library, and here are a very few snippets of the book listed below. It’s a really great read, and the photos are awesome!
June 20, 1921: Goodbye Montclair for a while. “There’s a long, long trail a winding across the land of our dreams” and we have started on it, 10:30 am. Shook hands goodbye with the men at the shop, waved goodbye to the assembled force of firemen and police at Valley Road crossing, and now for the scenery, experience and adventure…
July 15, 2021: Cheyenne, Wyoming. The Rockies are in sight. Twenty miles before reaching Cheyenne we saw them. Country was more hilly today, roller coaster effect. As elevation increased, I could notice a slight falling off in power, but the car worked beautifully. The last five miles the highway was rebuilt, and we had to travel over the open prairie – slow, rough but not trouble.
July 19, 2021: Rawlings, Wyoming. …We are camped tonight out on the desert a quarter mile off the Lincoln Highway midst the sagebrush, sand and coyotes. The air is clean, clear and dry and a flaming ruby sunset is followed by a silvery moon. I am writing from the light of the car head lights.
July 31, 1921. …You know “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” so when we were told that the road from Wilson to Jenny Lake to Moran was scarcely passable for autos, of course we had to go that way.
August 14, 2021: Cour-de-Alene (Heart of the Mountains), Idaho. We came – we saw – we conquered. Mountains everywhere, and everyone to climb including the Bitter Root Divide…We have traveled for days, almost continuously, on narrow roads, by precipices from 50 to 1000 feet deep. What confidence we place in the steering gear and the driver!
August 26, 1921: Sisson, California – a forest reserve at the base of Mt. Shasta. Well, in California at last – our speedometer registers over 4900 miles…
September 16, 1921: On the crest of the Sierra Mountains, Tioga Pass – 10,500 feet elevation. The wildest, rockiest mountain yet. Camping by the roadside with a big camp fire. 8 pm. It’s cold; a full silvery moon has just risen from behind a 13,000-foot peak. It is well below freezing. The air is still very clear. We have finished a big supper of tomato soup, fried potatoes, bread and butter, and best of all, broiled trout…