The red box

We rarely can resist stopping at these native stone houses. Next to sod houses, they are the ultimate in make-do building materials, but I had never seen one with a red metal box outside. I was hoping it was a Coke machine of some type.

Instead, it was a Hamilton automatic clothes dryer, billed as “The World’s First Automatic Clothes Dryer”.

In this 1950 ad, women were advised that they could "“Shed the Badge of a Drudge” by buying a new Hamilton dryer.

This machine would have been the latest gadget in 1950, but even the Hamilton name has been put out to pasture now. All that’s left of Hamilton dryers are sheet metal and memories.