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Welcome to eWillys.com, a website for vintage jeep enthusiasts. I update this website nearly every day with jeep deals, jeep history, interesting reader projects, jeep related info, and more.
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There are plenty of interesting, unusual, historic and surprising stories related to Jeeps and their owners. In addition, some of these features have nothing to do with jeeps. This link will display all featured stories starting from the latest.
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Importantly, the allure of buying a project jeep can be romantic. The reality of restoring a jeep can be quite different, expensive and overwhelming without the right tools and resources. So, tread carefully when purchasing a "project". If you have any concerns about buying a vintage jeep, or run across a scam, feel free to contact me for help, comments or concerns .
Anyone ever ride this jeep train? I’m still searching for more information about this tourist train.
This picture is from a postcard on eBay: View all the information on eBay
This is another postcard I found on eBay: View all the information on eBay
This is a little fuzzier. I found this postcard for sale at jumpingfrog.
Here are a couple different postcards of a DJ-3A Surrey towing some kind of visitor car at the Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth, MI. The Bavarian Inn is still there. I wonder what happened to the jeep?
1. View all the information on eBay
2. View all the information on eBay
Craig forwarded the below excerpt and photo from his local coop paper. I went to the website and spotted an additional photo (above). Here’s the location of the caverns.
Here is the text from Craig’s news article:
“Missouri is blessed with a number of remarkable show caves open to the public. One of the most unique is Fantastic Caverns, located just north of Springfield. The cave, which is served by Ozark Electric Cooperative, was first discovered in 1862 when a farmer’s dog crawled through what was then a narrow opening.
It wasn’t fully explored until 5 years later when a group of intrepid women responded to a newspaper challenge. What makes Fantastic Caverns so unique are the Jeep trams that carry visitors through the cave on a guided tour. This makes the 1 mile, 50-minute tour accessible to just about anyone, including seniors, children and those in wheelchairs.
Inside the cave are natural wonders created by the constant drip of acidic water through soluble limestone. Tour guides point out stalagtites and stalagmites, towering columns with colorful mineral stains, large deposits of flowstones and delicate draperies.
They also tell how the auditorium room was once used for weekly country music concerts in the 1950’s and mid-1960’s. A trip through Fantastic Caverns combines equal parts of awe and wonder with a lesson in history and science. In fact, the cavern is known as “Missouri’s oldest classroom.”
The tour costs $22.50 for adults and $14.50 for children. A discount for groups of 20 or more is available. The cave is open from 8 a.m. to dusk year-round except for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas.
For more information, call 417-833-2010 or visit www.fantasticcaverns.com”
I’ll have to see if more pics of these trains exist.
“For The Collector We Feature This Unused Standard Size Vintage Chrome Postcard Showing Jeep Drawn Vehicle, Fantasic Caverns in Springfield, Missouri. Back of card reads: FANTASTIC CAVERNS, the only cave that is large enough and level enough to drive through. You can see this cavern from the comfortable seats in a jeep drawn vehicle. Old postcard does have some corner/edge wear.”
I put this together based on some research tonight. If anyone has corrections or additions, please let me know.
For years, though I couldn’t say how many, Marvin Long ran a Jeep Train that was also known as the Mule Train. As these photos show, he used at least two different types of jeeps to pull a series of two wheeled carts along the beaches of St. Simons, Island. At least one source mentioned the train rides were for going out to the beach to collect shells. Whether this was the principle reason or just one of the events is less sure. Whatever it was they got to do, the ride was popular, as this article from the September 6, 1952, issue of Billboard Magazine described:
An early Jeep train can be seen in this photo from a book called St. Simons Island by Patricia Morris, which was also made into a post card. It looks like there might be a jeep all the way in the reason, too.
The use of a CJ-2A was followed up in 1955 (or later) by a CJ-5. This image can be found at this website: http://ga67.herobo.com/island6.html
Mr. Long arrived at St. Simons in the late 1940s to take over the stables there. He managed these for decades. The land (all or most of it?) on which the stables were situation has been turned into the St.Simons Land Trust.
