January 1950 Popular Mechanics Article on Tinkertown

UPDATE: Jerry contacted me about a locomotive jeep he would like to restore (see near bottom). He noted that it was used at Tinkertown and found this older post while hoping to learn more. So, this post is a complete redo of an early post that focused just on photos in a January 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.

It is probably no surprise that the Los Angeles metroplitan area was a hotbed of theme parks and carnivals following World War II. In particular, there was Beverly Park, which is claimed to be the park that stimulated Disney's interests in theme parks.

One of those carnivals was a traveling kiddie carnival called Tinkertown. Articles show it existed at least from 1950 through 1952, operating in Monrovia, Wilmington, Los Angeles, and other LA area towns.

Tinkertown appears to have owned, at one time or another, at least four unusual jeeps. One was a fire jeep made from a CJ-2A, shown below in red.

January 1950 Popular Mechanics

A second jeep appeared to have been a stretched (probably surplus) WWII jeep made into some kind of fire jeep used to tow a small Ferris wheel.

January 1950 Popular Mechanics

The article above refers to the jeep as a "fire engine"; perhaps it was modified during WWII? Here's a better image:

A third jeep-related setup was a train possibly made from a jeep (or jeep-engine-powered at the very least). It is pictured here:

January 1950 Popular Mechanics

The fourth known jeep was a jeep turned into a locomotive. It's the one Jerry now owns (along with two of the tram cars), one he'd like to restore. It's in surprisingly complete condition. He's hoping to learn more about the manufacturer and/or Tinkertown. Here's a photo of his train:

Here's how it looked in 1950:

January 1950 Popular Mechanics

Here's a photo from the winter of 1951:

So far, those are the only three historical images we've found of the Tinkertown train. A search of Los Angeles digital archives hasn't reveal anything. Unfortunately, searching "Tinkertown" on the web usually ends with finding the New Mexicos Tinker Town Attraction (which is pretty cool itself). There were also other Tinkertown carnivals across the US, which adds to the difficulty of the searches.

This February 1952 article doesn't show any jeeps, but does have more information:

Finally, there's this ride. It appears very close, but not exactly, as the one pictured with the lengthened "fire engine" jeep from above: