I’m always on the lookout for unusual vehicles and there are few that are more unusual than the Travel-Log. The photo below of the Travel-Log was used as last weekend’s One Clue Mystery. It was recognized by George G — congrats as always, George!
The Travel-Log was created by Charles Kellogg, a popular Vaudeville singer and charismatic renaissance man who lived in northern California. He was well known for his broad range of birdcalls. Kellogg loved the redwood forests and was bothered that they seemed to be disappearing. He thought of a novel way of helping to conserve them — by constructing a vehicle made of a redwood tree and using it as a mobile ambassador.
In 1917 the Pacific Lumber Company donated a fallen redwood tree trunk measuring 11 feet in diameter, from which Kellogg cut a 22-foot section to mount onto a Nash Quad truck chassis. The log weighed three tons and needed to be hollowed out so that it could be mounted to the frame. Kellogg crafted a unique mobile home featuring a kitchenette, storage lockers, sleeping quarters, dining table and a toilet. He named his vehicle the Travel-Log and there is nothing else out there vaguely like it that I’m aware of.
Kellogg used the Travel-Log for a number of years to inform his audiences across the USA about the need to conserve the California redwoods. Kellogg died in 1948, and the Travel-Log was stored as his former home until it was donated to the Humboldt Redwoods Interpretive Association in 1995. It was restored and put on display at the Humboldt Redwoods State Park Visitors Center, where we saw it last year. There is a special room constructed in the visitor center, with many interesting exhibits and displays, some of which I’ve illustrated here.
During the winter holidays the Travel Log is decorated with garland, lights and stuffed toy animals.
