The Gadgets Page

Photos of this sail wagon were posted on the Library of Congress’ Flickr feed a couple of weeks ago.

Sail Wagon, Brooklyn (Library of Congress) by Bain News Service, publisher from Flickr

This entry from the Kansas State Historical Society has some information about them:

• Kansas State Historical Society – Wind Wagons

A novel device of the Kansas territorial period was the wind wagon, sometimes called a sailing wagon. Several were built and in 1860 the press gave them considerable attention. They were similar to an ordinary light wagon; weighed about 350 pounds; had a bed about three feet wide, eight feet long, and six inches deep; and were propelled by a sail or sails raised over the center of the front axle. When the breezes blew in the right direction the wagons were reported to skim over the prairies at about 15 miles per hour, with speeds at up to 40 miles per hour.

At least one wagon was reported to have traveled from Kansas City to Denver in a little more than 20 days. Upon the arrival of a wind wagon from Westport, Missouri, a Council Grove newspaper asked of its readers: “Who says now that the Santa Fe Trail is not a navigable stream.” The few wind wagons that were built undoubtedly traveled further in the press than they did on the prairie and horses and oxen remained the basic mode of power for a good many years.

My first thought was that they would be useless because narrow roads wouldn’t allow a wind wagon to tack like a sail boat can on the open water. I forgot that our plains were an open swath of land back then.

They were also using sail wagons in California. Here is a first hand description from 1902:

• Rosamond, California, USA: Local History – Sailing Rosamond Dry Lake

Riding on the Desert Queen was thrilling, according to Von Blon. “You go dodging, at the start, between dots of greasewood and cacti as the ‘ship’ leaves camp with the rising wind; here and there grotesque yucca trees stand like sentinels, with limbs, like long arms, outstretched to reach you; homed toads scurry away over the hot sands, and lizards dart,” Von Blon wrote. “These things you notice at first, but the wind increases and the pace grows madder. You tie a string to your hat and anchor it to your suspender; your handkerchief is whipping from your neck and goes sailing and writhing up and away out of sight almost before you realize that it is gone. This is indeed a different wind from any that ever blew in any other part of the world.”

Sail wagons were somewhat of a fad in the early twentieth century, but as a current transportation method, sadly, they would be hampered by our narrow roads. It makes me wonder what our landscape would look like now if the sail wagon had beat out the oxen wagon and eventually the car.

Sail Wagon, Brooklyn (Library of Congress) by Bain News Service, publisher from Flickr