MTFCA Forum

The Moose Lake fire was inn 1918. My mother lived on a farm north east of Moose Lake. The fire got within two miles of the farm. The Model T in the photo looks like a 1917.

Moose Lake Fire-453 lives lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloquet_f ... le%20River.

That first picture; what was a 'radio flyer' called before there was radio ? Telegraph flyer ?

Also in the first picture; the cowl lamps and rear fenders tell me its a ‘14 but the hood louvers portend ‘15…

That first photo is an interesting model T.
While the hood could have been easily replaced for any of a hundred reasons, it is also possible that the car might have left the factory that way.
It is generally believed that the factories generally tried to keep the two styles of cars separated and use the appropriate pieces for whatever was being assembled during the late 1914 production and slow beginning to the 1915 model/style cars? Ford also was trying to keep production moving on both styles.
That touring car is almost certainly one of the late production 1914s, and possibly (probably?) even built in early calendar 1915. It has the billed front fenders which have finally been accepted as transitional fenders used on both late 1914 style cars and the early 1915 style cars. Although the angle of the photo does not show it clearly, the sidelamp due to its relative position against the firewall appears to also be the late 1914 style used well into early 1915 calendar year.

While era photos of 1914 model Ts showing the louvered 1915 style hood are not common? There are not exactly rare either. Certainly, in some cases they will have been examples where the hood and maybe other pieces had been changed? However, it is unlikely that all of those cars would have been changed that early.
Way too many examples, both era photos and used to be surviving cars before hobbyists so dutifully "corrected" them, exist or existed showing year/model/style mixtures for one to believe that Ford did not make a lot of them that way.
Things like 1913/'14 style windshields on the other year style body can be found in era photographs. Even for later years, after dozens of hobbyist owners of 1925 sedans "corrected" their cars by replacing the 1926 style side aprons on them with the "correct" 1925 style, it was discovered that Ford was actually shipping out and selling late 1925 sedans with the 1926 style side aprons. Most likely, production of the new style had begun months early, and supply of the earlier style was low or misplaced so the newer style ones were used to keep production moving. They fit (fairly well?), they worked, they looked good, and they were there. So why not?

The detail resolution wasn't great, but I have seen an era photo taken in a dealer showroom, clearly showing a 1915 runabout with 1914 rear fenders! "Crossover" parts clearly happened, and fairly often.