American Truck Historical Society

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American Truck Historical Society Incorporated in 1971, the American Truck Historical Society was formed to preserve the history of trucks, the trucking industry, and its pioneers. Zoe S. states.

Since 1971, the American Truck Historical Society (ATHS) has been on a mission to preserve the rich history of trucks, the trucking industry, and its pioneers. In our early days, we merged with the United States Truck Historical Society to create a stronger, unified ATHS. This merger was quickly followed by official recognition from the American Trucking Association, cementing our role as the leading authority in trucking history. Our first headquarters was in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, where we started with a simple newsletter that blossomed into our beloved magazine, Wheels of Time, in 1980. Under the leadership of Mr. Harris Saunders, Sr. (of Saunders Truck Leasing) in 1977, we moved our base to Birmingham, Alabama, and welcomed Mrs. James to manage our growing library, archives, and membership. In the early 2000s, we made another strategic move, relocating our headquarters to Kansas City, Missouri, to be more centrally located for our members across the United States. Every year since 1972, we've hosted an annual convention, and since 1980, this event has featured an antique truck show that's open to the public. What started with just 23 trucks has now grown into a spectacular showcase with over 1,000 vehicles, including fire apparatus, buses, RVs, military vehicles, and special interest vehicles. Today, ATHS has a global reach, with members in 23 countries and all 50 U.S. We also encourage the formation of local chapters, creating a vibrant community of truck enthusiasts dedicated to celebrating and preserving the history of the trucking industry. Join us as we honor the past and drive into the future!

10/24/2026

Chester England (C.R. England), Harold Groendyke (Groendyke Transport) and Al Peterman (Peterbilt) were inducted into the American Trucking and Industry Leader Hall of Fame on Oct. 22 at ATHS headquarters in Kansas City.

Chester England bought a Model T in 1920 to haul milk and farm goods in Utah. With his sons, he built C.R. England into one of the nation’s largest refrigerated carriers.

Harold Groendyke hauled his first load of kerosene in 1932. Groendyke is now one of the country’s largest tank truck carriers.

Al Peterman bought Fageol Motors in 1939 as part of his plan to build better logging trucks. Peterbilt followed.

Learn more: https://atilhalloffame.com
Support trucking history at aths.org/joinnow

Explore the machines that transformed timber hauling in Logging Trucks: 1915–1970 Photo Archive by Donald F. Wood. 128 p...
10/23/2026

Explore the machines that transformed timber hauling in Logging Trucks: 1915–1970 Photo Archive by Donald F. Wood. 128 pages of trucking history!

ATHS Members: Save 20% + an additional 15%
Non-Members: Save 15%

Get your copy today: tinyurl.com/loggingtruckbook

If you’ve spent any time around old logging trucks, you’ve probably heard a few people swear that nothing ever built cou...
10/23/2026

If you’ve spent any time around old logging trucks, you’ve probably heard a few people swear that nothing ever built could outwork a Hayes or a Pacific. Both came out of Vancouver, British Columbia, and both were built for some of the biggest timber and roughest roads in North America.

Hayes got its start in the 1920s, when Douglas Hayes went from selling truck parts to building trucks. As truck logging took off on the coast, Hayes built heavy trucks for those mountain roads. One of its biggest contributions was the rotating bunk, which let the log trailer track behind the truck on tight corners instead of binding up. Log trucks still work on that same principle today. Hayes was also among the first to put diesel engines and tandem axles under logging trucks, back in 1933.

Its most famous truck was the HDX, a massive off-highway hauler. The largest, the HDX 1000, ran a 430-horsepower Detroit Diesel V-12. Mack bought a controlling share of Hayes in 1969, then sold it to Paccar in 1975, which closed the plants. Plenty of Hayes trucks kept working for decades after that.

Pacific has a direct tie to Hayes. In 1947, three former Hayes employees started Pacific Truck & Trailer, building their first trucks on a shipyard wharf on False Creek in Vancouver. Pacific stayed small and custom, but its off-highway log trucks, especially the P-12 and P-16, earned a reputation as some of the toughest ever built. International Harvester bought the company in 1970, and Pacific built trucks for customers in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia before the last one rolled out in 1991.

Neither company ever built trucks in big numbers, but the ones they built were made to last, and loggers on both sides of the border still talk about them.

Ever driven a Hayes or a Pacific, or seen one at work? Tell us about it in the comments.

From the redwood country of Northern California to the steep grades of the Pacific Northwest and the pine woods of the S...
10/22/2026

From the redwood country of Northern California to the steep grades of the Pacific Northwest and the pine woods of the South, Mack trucks built a reputation in the logging business that few manufacturers could match.

It started with the AC. Mack introduced the chain-drive model in 1916, and loggers figured out fast that it was close to unbreakable. Those trucks crawled out of the woods on dirt roads with heavy loads day after day. The AC is also where the “Bulldog” nickname came from, and it stuck for good reason.

The L-series came along in 1940 and caught on with western loggers right away. Mack even built a model just for the West Coast, the LT, aimed at the heavy haulers working the mountains. A lot of L-models ran Mack’s own END 672 diesel, good for about 165 horsepower. That’s not much by today’s standards, but those trucks got loaded way past their ratings and still brought the logs home, slowly.

Mack also built for off-highway work. Its LR off-road haulers ran on private logging roads where weight limits didn’t apply, and loads well over 100,000 pounds were routine. All that weight was hard on running gear, so Mack came up with the Planidrive hub reduction axle, which later showed up under the M-series off-highway trucks too.

On public roads, the B-model and then the R-model kept Macks in the woods through the postwar years. In January 1966, Mack opened a plant in Hayward, California, to build western-style trucks for customers on the West Coast, logging outfits included.

By the end of the ’70s, Mack had been in the timber business for more than 60 years. Plenty of those old log trucks are still around today, restored by the people who drove them, or by their kids and grandkids.

Got a photo of an old Mack log truck, or a story about driving one? Post it in the comments.

Before most loggers thought of International Harvester as a truck company, they knew its equipment. The Chicago company’...
10/21/2026

Before most loggers thought of International Harvester as a truck company, they knew its equipment. The Chicago company’s TracTracTor crawlers skidded logs and cut haul roads in camps all over the country, and IH farm tractors worked plenty of small woodlots. Once that iron was in the woods, International trucks weren’t far behind.

By the 1930s and ’40s, D-series and K-series Internationals were hauling in logging and sawmill towns, many fitted with log bunks, heavier springs and auxiliary transmissions for the grades. The KB and L-series followed after the war. Out West, International’s plant in Emeryville, California, across the bay from San Francisco, built heavy-duty trucks for Western logging and heavy haul.

The smaller trucks did their share, too. In the pulpwood country of the South and Northeast, R-series Internationals and later Loadstars hauled short wood from the woodlot to the paper mill, often for family outfits running one or two trucks.

In the early 1970s, International brought out the Paystar. It had a heavy frame, flat fenders, an optional set-back front axle and your pick of Cummins, Detroit, Caterpillar or International power. Loggers rigged them as self-loaders with a knuckleboom behind the cab and hooked them to lowboys to move skidders, loaders, dozers and yarders from one show to the next.

A lot of those Paystars are still working today.

Did your family run Internationals in the woods? We’d like to see the photos and hear the stories. Post them below.

Kenworth and logging go back a long way. The company took the Kenworth name in Seattle in 1923, named for investors Harr...
10/20/2026

Kenworth and logging go back a long way. The company took the Kenworth name in Seattle in 1923, named for investors Harry Kent and Edgar Worthington, and it didn’t take long to figure out who its toughest customers were. Northwest loggers needed trucks that could climb steep, muddy haul roads under a full load and make it back down in one piece, every single day.

So Kenworth built them to order. A logger could pick the engine, gearing, wheelbase and axles to fit the ground he worked, instead of making do with whatever rolled off an assembly line. That built-to-order approach stuck, and it’s still part of the Kenworth story today.

Then came diesel. In 1933, Kenworth was the first American truck maker to offer a diesel engine as standard equipment. Out in the woods, that meant more pull on the grades and fewer fuel stops between the landing and the mill.

The timber connection got even deeper in 1944, when Pacific Car and Foundry bought the company. Pacific Car already knew the woods well. It had built logging railcars and sold winches and logging arches under the Carco name. You know that company today as PACCAR.

Trucks like these changed how timber moved. Logs that once rode the rails or floated downriver started coming out on rubber, and stands of timber that were too remote for a rail spur were suddenly within reach.

Over the years, the W900 and later the T800 became what a lot of people picture when they think “log truck,” from Oregon to British Columbia. And for the really rough stuff, the C500 earned a reputation as one of the toughest off-road haulers around.

Did you or someone in your family haul logs with a Kenworth? We want to see the photos and hear the stories. Post them below.

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Before his name became synonymous with heavy-duty trucks, Theodore Alfred “Al” Peterman was in the lumber business in Wa...
10/19/2026

Before his name became synonymous with heavy-duty trucks, Theodore Alfred “Al” Peterman was in the lumber business in Washington state.

Faced with the challenge of moving logs from the forests to his mills, Peterman turned to trucks. He modified surplus military vehicles for logging work, gaining firsthand experience with the demands of hauling heavy loads over rugged terrain.

That experience helped shape his next venture. In 1939, Peterman bought the assets of the struggling Fageol Truck and Coach Company in Oakland, California, and used them to found Peterbilt Motors Company, building trucks designed with the needs of working operators in mind.

For National Forest Products Week, we’re celebrating the logging roots of one of America’s best-known truck manufacturers.

Did you or someone in your family haul logs in a Peterbilt? We’d love to hear your story!

Al Peterman is among the 2026 class of honorees in the American Trucking and Industry Leader Hall of Fame, to be inducted Oct. 22 at ATHS headquarters in Kansas City.

Today kicks off National Forest Products Week, October 18–24!ATHS celebrates the hardworking people, rugged machines, an...
10/18/2026

Today kicks off National Forest Products Week, October 18–24!

ATHS celebrates the hardworking people, rugged machines, and trucking history behind an industry that helped shape our nation.

🚛 Was logging part of your life or your family's history? We'd love to hear about the people, trucks, and memories that made it part of your history.

The cab-forward pickup looked like the future in the 1960s, and John Kessler’s 1968 Dodge A-100 shows why it turned so m...
10/17/2026

The cab-forward pickup looked like the future in the 1960s, and John Kessler’s 1968 Dodge A-100 shows why it turned so many heads.

Dodge introduced the A-100 for the 1964 model year as its answer to the Ford Econoline and Chevrolet Corvair Rampside. Built on a short 90-inch wheelbase, the forward-control design freed up room behind the cab for a full-length bed in a remarkably compact package. The engine sat between the seats under a removable cover, making routine service easy from inside the cab.

Early A-100s were powered by the 170 and 225 cubic inch Slant Six engines. Dodge added the 273 V8 as an option in 1965, and by 1967 buyers could order the 318 V8, giving the little cabover more muscle than its size suggested. The pickup was always the rarest body style in the A-series lineup, as vans and wagons outsold it by a wide margin. Production ended after the 1970 model year, which makes clean survivors like this one a real find today.

The A-100 also earned a place in drag racing history. In 1965, Bill “Maverick” Golden rolled out his custom-built Little Red Wagon with a Hemi mounted in the bed. With so much weight over the rear wheels, it lifted the front end and ran the length of dragstrip on its back tires, becoming one of the most famous wheelstanders of all time.

Do you own a pickup with a story to tell? ATHS welcomes trucks of all makes, models and sizes, from heavy haulers to streetwise pickups. Join us at aths.org.

For early loggers, the timber was there for the taking. Getting it to the mill was the challenge, on roads, if you could...
10/16/2026

For early loggers, the timber was there for the taking. Getting it to the mill was the challenge, on roads, if you could call them that, where loaded trucks often sank to the axles.

Starting in the late 1800s, private railroads built by logging companies were the dominant way to haul logs out of the forest. In the 1910s, trucks arrived to challenge them, but they ran on solid rubber tires and hauled heavy loads over soft, wet ground. The fix was the plank road: heavy timbers laid lengthwise in two tracks spaced to the truck’s wheels, set on crossties.

Lumber was cheap and close at hand, so plank roads could be built quickly. Driving one took skill. Keep the wheels on the planks, and good luck braking on wet timber going downhill.

Plank roads proved trucks could do the job. In the 1930s, pneumatic tires, better brakes, and graded gravel roads replaced the planks, and trucks began overtaking rail in the woods. In 1934 in Morton, Washington, T.A. Peterman built his logging operation around trucks and was one of the first to put a road grader to work in the woods. His roads were smooth enough that trucks came off the hill at speeds unheard of at the time. A few years later, he started building his own trucks. You know them as Peterbilt.

Did anyone in your family drive the old plank roads? Share your stories and photos below.

Address

10380 N Ambassador Drive
Kansas City, MO
64153

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 4:30pm
Tuesday 8am - 4:30pm
Wednesday 8am - 4:30pm
Thursday 8am - 4:30pm
Friday 8am - 4:30pm

Telephone

(816) 891-9900

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