This 1953 Trailer Sat Abandoned For 60 Years. What We Found Was Amazing

By David Clarke

This 1953 Vagabond trailer sat in Florida for decades before being purchased in 2003 by Henry Wallace. The 8000 lb., the like-new camper is a perfect example of the 1950s era mobile home. The Michigan-based Vagabond Coach Manufacturing Company were particular well-known as producers of “the Cadillac of trailers.”

Thanks to its sixty years sitting untouched in a Florida field, the trailer looks almost new. The exterior is a very 50s-ish light yellow, but Wallace says it needed a new coat of paint when he purchased it thirteen years ago. Still, in form and color, it has a strikingly vintage vibe.

Even more striking is the interior. Walking inside the Vagabond trailer is like stepping into a time capsule of 1953 Americana. All of the inside trappings still look original, with their notably pre-Mad Men style.

The roomy living space looks quite comfortable. All of the furniture is original and yet still looks and feels like new, thanks to the many decades spent in covered storage rather than subjected to years of wear and tear from cross-country traveling.

Looking into the dining area and kitchen gives you a good sense of just how big this trailer is. You can almost see a typical Fifties-era nuclear family making this their home for a week of camping at Yellowstone Park.

That family camping trip would have been pretty easy to pull off with a kitchen this big, which almost looks as big as some of the kitchens in now-trendy micro apartments. It still has an original stove, a rather large sink, and above that, the signature Fifties fluorescent light. The stove originally ran on propane.

Of course, you can’t really get more nostalgic than an old-fashioned Frigidaire refrigerator, with its very retro logo. The appliance company is 100 years old in 2016, and for many years was owned by another iconic mid-20th-century American company: General Motors. In fact, for a while, the Frigidaire logo even included the phrase “Product of General Motors.”

Even the bedroom in this trailer is still in great shape, with inviting birch panels and pretty white curtains. That light looks plenty bright to keep a reader up deep into the night, even today. And despite holding a couple twin beds, it doesn’t look too cramped at all. Perfect size for that camping family!

The bathroom even looks more like a typical mid-century bathroom than a compromised mobile home space. It’s got a decent-sized sink, mirror, and window. Everything still looks quite clean, particularly the green tiling in all its Eisenhower-era glory.

Surprise – it even has a full-size tub!

This beautiful old Vagabond 1953 trailer even looks good illuminated at dusk. You can see from this image how many windows the camper had, offering plenty of natural light and making the small space feel bigger.