Aloha History- an interview with Glen Gordon

On March 1st and 2nd 2010 I interviewed Glen Gordon who owned the company from 1959 -1970. He is a really cool guy and had lots of interesting stories but here are some of the historical highlights. Thanks to Ted Timmons via Wikipedia for tracking him down and getting contact info.

The company was originally started in Aloha Oregon in 1954 (hence the name), Glen Gordon bought the company on July 6, 1959 when he was still in his 20's with a business partner and they expanded the business and moved it to Beaverton near 142nd Ave. They sold the company in 1969 to a company called Woodtech for 'several million dollars' because of changes in automobiles and the economy travel trailers were falling out of favor.

Although they were most well known for their travel trailers they also manufactured a variety of truck campers, and made a few custom motor homes by attaching their trailers to Chevy frames and even a few house barges by attaching their trailer frames onto barges (how cool would that be?)

The smallest trailer they made was 11' and the largest they manufactured was 28', at the height of their production in the 1960's they were making 17-19 trailers a day, had several hundred employees, owned their buildings and even had a night shift to keep up with production. The main areas where they sold and marketed their trailers were OR, WA, ID and BC and at one point held 13% of the regional market which was 'a remarkable amount' for a small company. Their most popular trailer was the 15' Beaver.

Because they were making their trailers for the NW market they had a few unique characteristics including a larger than normal drip rail and thicker plywood around the wheel wells to help deal with moisture. Their biggest technological innovation however was wrapping the framing stringers around the frame so there wasn't just a box built onto a frame, this resulted in much higher stability than other travel trailers at the time.

They also made several custom trailers for nature writers such as Francis Ames. They were also significant to the 1964 Seattle Worlds fair because there was a shortage of housing for all of the tourists they sold hundreds to enterprising Seattleites whom rented them out as vacation rentals.