Historic Hood River
“Water Wagon”
5-10-2024
Notes
Here’s a joke that definitely doesn’t translate to modern viewers. This card from the Thomson family album show a cartoon with two boys on a “water wagon” being drawn by a mule. In there era the downtown streets were dirt and the city probably had a water wagon to hold down the dust in the summer months. It’s not clear what the connotation is of them on the wagon, but I suspect it’s self-deprecating humor.
I suspect this is Edgar and Earl Franz, who were related to the Thomson family by marriage.
Kurt Cyrus
Back then the temperance movement was still going strong, and a lot of people were signing pledges of abstinence. Maybe these two guys stuck their faces in the cut-out poster to celebrate being on the wagon?