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It was a distinctive vehicle called the 鈥淥xmobile,鈥� and Ezra Meeker retraced part of the Oregon Trail while riding in it in 1928. The special truck 鈥� and its clever name 鈥� predate the and even the original Batmobile by roughly a decade. The Oxmobile was a remarkable artifact of a remarkable Washingtonian, and it fittingly went to a famous national museum created by Henry Ford back in the 1930s.

But the Oxmobile is missing.

鈥淔ord doesn鈥檛 have a record of where it went or what happened to it or anything,鈥� said Dennis Larsen, author of several books about Ezra Meeker. 鈥淚 suspect it ended up in a junkyard somewhere, but we don鈥檛 know.鈥�

is a larger-than-life figure from Washington鈥檚 past. He came to the Pacific Northwest by covered wagon on the Oregon Trail back in 1852. For decade after active decade, he was an entrepreneur and historian, prolific author, and who built the in Puyallup.聽 And, incidentally, he had a big beard, not unlike the recent pandemic facial hair of a certain Seattle鈥檚 Morning News host.

One more thing that the highly accomplished Ezra Meeker set about doing in the early 20th century was to make sure that the history of the Oregon Trail was preserved and commemorated. Until his death at age 97 in 1928, he traveled back and forth across the country, giving history talks, and dedicating monuments along the route that thousands of settlers traveled from the 1830s to the 1860s.

In that last summer before Meeker died, Henry Ford himself directed the Ford Motor Company to build the pioneer icon a special vehicle for his cross-country travels. It was a Ford truck chassis 鈥� a 1927 or 1928 Model AA, for those keeping score 鈥� with the custom body of built onto it. Some clever person named it the Oxmobile, for the ox that pulled covered wagons in the 19th century. Also for those keeping score, Meeker had acquired a similar vehicle a decade earlier made by a long-gone automaker called Pathfinder. For some reason, the clever nickname for that gas-powered wagon 鈥� 鈥淪chooner mobile鈥� 鈥� didn鈥檛 stick, and it was known simply as the Pathfinder.

Meeker鈥檚 Ford Oxmobile had a big canvas cover, just like a wagon, that read on the side, in giant letters, 鈥淥ver The Old Oregon Trail.鈥� It had beds and a stove, and, according to historian and writer , it also had electrical gear courtesy of inventor Thomas Edison 鈥� one of the many famous people that Ezra Meeker befriended.

Dennis Larsen 鈥� who just about Meeker鈥檚 dedication to saving and promoting the history of the Oregon Trail 鈥� told the Washington State Historical Society in a 聽that the Oxmobile was like an early RV, and that, in some ways, Ezra Meeker invented the summer road trip.

In that summer of 1928, with help from a driver, Meeker toured New England in the brand-new Oxmobile, and then headed to Detroit in September, where Henry Ford had offered to install better shocks from the automaker鈥檚 Lincoln line of vehicles. When Meeker arrived in Detroit, the 97-year old took ill and had to be hospitalized. A month later, too frail to travel by Oxmobile, he went home to Seattle via train, and died in December.

Meanwhile, the Oxmobile stayed with the Ford Company. This was the very early years of the sprawling 聽that would open in 1933. Ford was a collector, and the museum was stocked with all kinds of buildings and vehicles and other big artifacts that told the story of American know-how and expansion. It鈥檚 easy to imagine the Oxmobile parked there, among other hallowed objects like an old DC-3 airplane and a vintage McDonald鈥檚 sign.

In 1930, the Oregon Trail Memorial Association (OTMA) and the Boy Scouts borrowed the Oxmobile and it was driven to a covered wagon centennial event at Independence Rock, Wyoming — this is perhaps the farthest west the vehicle ever came. Then, in 1935, it appeared on the White House lawn at a Pony Express 75th anniversary commemoration. This was the last time it was photographed. After appearing at a Boy Scout event at nearby Chesapeake Bay, the Oxmobile was shipped back to the Ford museum in Michigan.

What happened next is anybody鈥檚 guess, because though historians tracked down a mention of the Oxmobile in a newspaper article from 1943, it鈥檚 never been seen since.

Over the past few decades, a handful of Ezra Meeker scholars have tried to locate the distinctive truck. The first place the Oxmobile hunters checked was, of course, the Henry Ford Museum. Both Andy Anderson, who was administrator of the Meeker Mansion for the Ezra Meeker Historical Society back in the 1990s, and Camille Bradford, whose stepfather succeeded Ezra Meeker as president of the OTMA back in 1928 鈥� checked with the staff there. Each was told, essentially, that the Oxmobile was never accessioned 鈥� which is the fancy museum word for taking formal possession of an artifact. Both Anderson and Bradford say that nobody at the Henry Ford Museum has any idea where it went, what happened to it, or where it might be now.

Andy Anderson told 成人X站 Radio that 30 years ago, before the internet, old-timers associated with the Meeker Mansion figured that the Oxmobile would show up in a car magazine for sale someday 鈥� after perhaps being discovered in a dusty barn somewhere or coughed up by a collector who had secreted it away. But even with the internet, evidence of the Oxmobile鈥檚 ultimate fate has been hard to come by.

As to what exactly might have happened to this unique piece of history, Anderson鈥檚 theory is that sometime in the 1940s, the Oxmobile was simply converted back to a regular truck, with its custom covered wagon body and canvas top swapped out for a truck bed. Then, Anderson figures, the regular old truck would just have been driven until it was worn out and then scrapped.

鈥淚 believe 鈥� that it was stripped and refitted with a truck bed and driven into the ground,鈥� Anderson wrote in an email. 鈥淭he canvas would have rotted many years before.鈥�

Can you help solve the mystery?

I鈥檇 like to see if 成人X站 listeners and MyNorthwest readers can help solve the mystery of the missing Oxmobile. Please share this story on social media along with the hashtag #FindTheOxMobile, and let鈥檚 see if we can figure out what happened to Ezra Meeker鈥檚 one-of-a-kind ride.

I鈥檒l even throw in a reward of $97.30 for any information that leads to the Oxmobile鈥檚 whereabouts or to proof of its demise.

You can hear Feliks every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle鈥檚 Morning News, read more from him鈥�here, and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast聽here. If you have a story idea, please email Feliks鈥�here.