1960 Montgomery Ward Tent Camper
This is a recently restored Montgomery Ward Hawthorne Traveler folding tent camper. I bought it last June. Though it needed work, it was complete in every way right down to the tent poles, ropes and...
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Digging up info about the camper was interesting. I found Ward's newspaper ads with this camper shown. $399 was the advertised price. At first I assumed Wards had these campers built by another company. Turns out they were made by the Ajax Mfg Co in Iowa which was wholly owned by Montgomery Ward. Ajax made fencing, farm hardware, corn cribs etc, and other steel farm based products for Wards catalogs. In 1958 with recreational camping on the rise, they began making camper bodies. Within a couple years, tent campers accounted for most of their production. In the late 60's Ward's contracted Camel to make some of their campers.
