User talk:Valfontis/Aloha Trailer Company

{{WikiProject Oregon|class=Stub|importance=Low}}

Sources

Two minor press mentions

• Spokane Daily Chronicle 1965, story about lawsuit against Aloha Trailer Co.
• Tri-City Herald 1964, brief mention of new models available from Aloha Trailer Co.

Katr67 (talk) 19:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Google search

Google search on "Aloha Trailer Co.", mostly hits on government spec sites. Only one hit on "Aloha Trailer Company" besides Wikipedia, seems to be a personal narrative about owning a trailer dealership.

Note difficulty on searching "Aloha +trailer +Beaverton" yields a lot of false results because of the proximity of Aloha, Oregon to Beaverton. Which leads to the question, are the trailers named for the town, or is that just a coincidence? Katr67 (talk) 19:34, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Alternate names for company

Per this 1969 SEC report (page 2):

• Aloha Industries, Inc.
• Aloha Trailer Co.
• Aloha Camper Corporation
• Travel Industries Incorporated

Here's an ad for an Aloha Camper Corp. camper

Katr67 (talk) 20:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Aloha made a brand called "Bounty Campers". There are three advertisements on gnews for the product line, mostly because the Chevy dealership was trying to sell the truck to go along with the camper. The ads are nice- not authoritative, but good to find a few more search terms. tedder (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

No RS to back this up, but I'm pretty sure Aloha's president went on to form the Sherpa Aircraft Manufacturing Company, which is based in Scappoose. tedder (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Two more news stories and Google Books hits

Three mentions of Travel Industries, Inc., including two about a "National Dreamer Pickup Camper Rally": [1], [2], [3]

Aloha Trailer Co. in Google Books, includes patents, labor reports, consumer magazines, etc. Dates range from 1958-1976.

Aloha Camper Corp. in Google Books. Patents, 1970-1977.

Aloha Trailer in Google Books, some false hits for Aloha Trailer Court, duplicates of above, Interstate Commerce Commission report

Most of these are trivial mentions and have limited previews. Katr67 (talk) 23:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. So the Dreamer Pickup Camper, or Travel Industries Inc., is based in Oswego, Kansas. I can't tell if Aloha merged into Travel Industries, or if Aloha was just a local RV company that rebadged someone else's equipment. tedder (talk) 23:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Info

Hi everyone, I appreciate your efforts and I'm sorry that I'm learning as i go. I love Wikipedia and I'm sorry if I'm making this difficult for anyone. I do trust that everyone has everyone elses best interests in mind. I think that I do have enough supportive information to make this entry valid including interviews with people that worked for the company and information from the Chamber of Commerce and I'm willing to dig up whatever other information is out there that is verifiable to make this entry happen. I'm Aloha Trailer savvy, not Wikipedia savvy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumpytrout (talk • contribs) 13:44, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you, I've had a busy week. Thanks for joining in. Just a hint, you can "sign" your posts by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~~~~. Does any of the info you have found have a print source, or is it all just from oral interviews, aka things people have told you? Unfortunately infomation gathered this way is original research and can't be used as a source on Wikipedia. So if you can find out dates, authors, titles of any print sources, that would help immensely.

I also wanted to give you specific info about what would show notability. Examples of these theoretical sources could include an article in the Oregonian that isn't just a brief mention, but that talks about the history of the company, annual sales figures, impact on Beaverton's economy, etc. Even a more local source (Aloha Breeze?) might work if it's extensive, though it is harder to convince people that local sources show notability, so a regional source would be better. Is there a profile of the owner written in a trade publication somewhere? Has no one written a book on vintage travel trailers that includes a chapter on Aloha? I found several hits on biographies and obituaries of folks who worked at Aloha, so it obviously employed many people over the years. Employment figures would be good. See the guidelines for notability of companies for more. Like I said in the AfD, I'm going to the State Library today (it's open one Saturday a month for genealogical research) and I'll take a look in the card file and see if there is anything on Aloha, or "the economy of Beaverton" or something like that. If I can't find anything, maybe you could call or e-mail one of their regular reference librarians (on a weekday) for help.

Finally, know any reporters? Get one interested in the whole Aloha thing--the folks who do restoration, the get-togethers, etc. and see if they would write a cool human interest/history of Oregon piece on the company. We could cite that, as strange as I'm sure it sounds. Cheers, Katr67 (talk) 13:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Does this count for anything? http://alohatravelltrailer.blogspot.com/2010/02/aloha-baby.html I've been in contact with a few people that worked for the company and they are going through their old stuff to see if they can dig anything out for me. I'm sure I can find something to make this work Lumpytrout (talk) 14:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Pst, take out the "nowiki" tags to sign. Don't have time to check that link, but I wanted to let you know I found several references to the company at the State Library from the Oregon Journal, Capital Journal, Oregon Statesman, etc. I need to look these up on microfilm, but I think with those refs there will be enough notability. Later, Katr67 (talk) 01:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

okay, cool. I can't wait! Lumpytrout (talk) 14:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)