The Mail-Journal, Volume 6, Number 52, Milford, Kosciusko County, 28 January 1970 — Page 39

... - • ' IT J < VT O 1_ J Helps pnt U.S. on wheels

Barth, Inc., Milford, makes top quality travel trailer

There are hundreds of travel trailer factories in northern Indiana but few manufacture a quality product that can compare with those made at Barth. Inc.. Milford. Quality is a must at Barth. Inc., and the employees of the factory are conscientious, qualityminded and proud of their finished products. The plant is located south of town and is growing by leapsand bounds. At its helm are ownerMike Um ba ugh. sales manager Ernie Hummitch and Bob Barth who is in charge of production, engineering and . development. Umbaugh bought the still young and growing company from Barth on April 8. 1968 thus freeing Barth of the management of the plant and allowing him to work with production and engineering. When Barth first went into production the 19-foot trailer was the most popular This grew to 24foot, then 26-foot and 28-foot and

FAMILY FUN \ SYSTEM... Builders Os The WorltTs K Finest x > Travel "• Trailers B3RTH P ROAD 15 — MILFORD, INDIANA ||| ■ ■ / - ■ ■ . j ' ■ - ■ ■ ■ ■ El a . _ . ■ ■ " - Self-Contained Barth Motor Home

now the 30-foot trailer has all but taken over The Barth trailer has manyunique features which also include safety features. In fact, Bob Barth has been making the sidewall, end section and roof of unitized construction for the past six years. Only recently the automobile industry has adopted this process. It allows the vehicle to flex as an aircraft wing and permits the trailer to go anywhere the tow car will go and still stay together. A Dream Come True You might say' the Barth trailers are a dream come true! Bob Barth is one of the founders of the trailering industry. He was at one time executive vice president of Atlas Mobile Homes, then on a S2S bet that he could get into the business and make a go of it he started the Beeline Company in Elkhart by making one unit and selling it, then others and selling them. Soon his volume was in excess of a million.

Barth, however, dreamed of an all-aluminum unit so he bought an old Spartan trailer (Spartan was the grandaddy in the aluminum field) and tore it apart to see how it could be improved upon. He studied the old Spartan for a solid year before he built a prototype and took it over to the old Studebaker proving grounds where he literally “ran it to death." His next step was to tear it down and find his mistakes. It took other trailers and three or four years of work before the trailer of his dreams was perfected and the first Barth trailer came into being. It was early in the 1960’s when Barth sold the Beeline Company and built a new plant in Milford. In November of 1964 he filed for a patent on his method of construction. This took two years and nine months to obtain. After the patent was approved he began national advertising and started to look around for

someone to manage the business. This would allow him to spend more time in the plant working with the actual manufacturing of the trailers. When Umbaugh bought the plant in 1968 Barth was once

iiii SMALL PARTS-Women from Milford. Syracuse and North Webster are shown above as they work in the small parts department at Chore-Time Equipment. Inc., in Milford. The plant manufactures various types of automatic feeding equipment for the farm industry.

again free to do the kind of work he wanted to do so he left the office and returned to the shop where one may find him today as he keeps on improving the Barth trailers, campers and the all new mobile home.