MTFCA Forum

In the town of Rust, the 3 women at the left seem twitterpated at the notion of having their picture taken.

I love the ice cream cone kid!

Why is "Why?" written on the transom window above them?

The Age of Contraptions... that tractor conversion appears to be very effective.

Couldn't find a Town called RUST in the USA, just Rust Township just Township hall). In the background a sign say San Fransisco.

TXGOAT2 wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 06, 2025 12:55 pm

Why is "Why?" written on the transom window above them?

Because, if you don't ask "why", you'll never learn a thing.

It appears to have more lettering to the statement/question than just the "why" - look to the left.

I am not certain that it is what that billboard is about? However, the "San Francisco Call" was one of the major San Francisco newspapers way back in the days.

Several cars I need to comment on in other photos when I have a few minutes.

It may be a photo of El Cerrito.
The town of El Cerrito, Calif was originally named Rust after the postmaster, Wilhelm F. Rust. The city's name was changed in 1916. It's located across the bay from San Francisco. That section of roadway may have been part of the Lincoln Highway realignment and is now part of San Pablo Ave. Possibly near where Fairmont Ave intersects it since that's where the original post office was and where a historical placard exists. The realignment occurred after the Carquinez Bridge was built in the 1920's and the Lincoln Highway was diverted from going through Hayward to the south of the ferry boat landing in Oakland , instead through Vallejo to the north. Edsel Ford would have gone through Hayward on his way through to the 1915 Pan-Pacific fair. However Horatio Jackson in his Winton would have traveled this section shown in the photo during his transcontinental trek in 1903.

As an additional piece of trivia the El Cerrito library was mentioned in the Star Trek book the Kobayashi Maru. It was where a young (Captain to be) Kirk goes to find a solution to Starfleet Academy's unwinnable test

I just noticed another clue.
In the photo there's a sign mentioning the "County Line". South of Fairmont Ave toward the border of El Cerrito and Albany use to be a laundry called the County Line Cleaners. A Japanese American family ran it for many years. It's where Contra Costa County meets Alameda County.

Beautiful gloss paint job. No pinstriping? Must be brand new…1915?

Jim P, That is a wonderful photo of that 1915 touring car! It clearly shows the brass trimmed lamps. Black trimming of the lamps began in July of 1915 (late 1915 "model" year), although some car continued to get the brass trimming though August and maybe even into September. Very few cars would have been leaving the factory with brass trimmed lamps after July.
The electric horn button on the steering column also had a long switchover time where both earlier and later were being produced. The electric horn was being used on the "enclosed" body cars (center-door sedans and folding top couplets) beginning in the fall of 1914!. However, open body cars did not begin receiving the electric horn until around April of 1915. However, many of the open body Ts continued to get the earlier type bulb horns through June of 1915, with a few still being produced at least well into August. So, while there were five months during which the early style lamps and later style horn could have both been on a given model T? The likelihood is that such a car would have left the factory in June or early July of 1915.

C street
Washington, Kansas

For comparison purposes. Looked a lot better a hundred years ago before all the modern “improvements”:

Perhaps the Indians also thought that it looked a lot better before all those modern "improvements".