Mud Wagon project rolling along

Rancho Bernardo Historical Society’s mud wagon project has some wheels under it — literally.

Attaching spoked wheels to the frame was the latest milestone to getting the historic replica on the road. Now enough progress has been made by Richard Thorpe and Phil Ewing that a call can be put out to recruit volunteers with woodworking and carpentry experience since the next major step will be constructing the wagon’s passenger coach.

When completed, the wagon will go on display at the society’s museum in Bernardo Winery. The project started a couple years ago when the group purchased a mud wagon used for decades in local parades, battle reenactments, Old Town displays and Hollywood movies because it was suspected the wagon might have traversed local trails from 1887 to 1910. Upon further research and discovering that most of the wagon had been tweaked with non-historical materials, the RB group sold it to the Valley Center Historical Society and decided to build a replica with an authentic undercarriage as its foundation.

Thorpe, a Poway resident and Rancho Bernardo Historical Society member leading the mud wagon volunteer construction effort, and Ewing, a blacksmith and wheelwright expert associated with the Escondido Historical Center, have been working on the replica since last summer. The early tasks of restoring a 6-foot wide, by 9-foot long steel wagon frame from the 1880s and making new springs took countless hours of intricate work.

After that was completed, the next task was building a wood frame from white oak by using the old wood parts as a pattern for the new replacements, Thorpe said.

“When we put it back together we made the frame pieces a little bigger, we beefed the frame up and modified the front axel ... so it can carry more people,” Thorpe said, explaining that while the wagon’s dimensions are staying the same, the new wood pieces are a little heavier and thicker.

They purchased the wheel parts from a Mennonite manufacturer in Ohio, but assembled the wheels at the Escondido workshop they have been working at in Grape Day Park, Thorpe said.

The next step is the brakes and coach, with Ewing is working on the brakes and Thorpe starting coach construction. As they do those tasks, Thorpe said yet-to-be-recruited volunteers can start sanding the wagon’s wheels and frame before moving on to additional coach details. Eventually, the wagon will be painted, probably by professionals, he said. The coach will be painted red and the undercarriage yellow.

“We should have it done by early 2016,” Thorpe said.

According to Thorpe, the plan is to have volunteers work on the wagon every Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Because they are using a space at the Escondido Historical Center, he said volunteers must join its Bandy Blacksmith Guild, which has annual dues of $25 per person. Volunteers are also required to have current health insurance. To volunteer, call the RB Historical Society at 858-775-5788.

Once completed, Thorpe said the wagon can be pulled by horses or mules. He said there are several drive teams in the area available for the task, adding not just any horse can be used because they must be “steady draft horses” who do not get spooked in crowds since the goal is to drive the wagon in parades, like RB’s Spirit of the Fourth parade.

Rancho Bernardo Historical Society President Nancy Canfield said the group has raised enough money to complete the project. It sold the first mud wagon for $3,000, received $500 in seed money and another $500 through a donation. The remainder is coming from a $25,000 community enhancement grant from the County of San Diego that was recently presented by County Supervisor Dave Roberts.

When completed, Canfield said the wagon will likely be put on display inside the museum, instead of outside it, to protect it from vandalism and the elements. Because the Escondido Historical Center has helped with the wagon’s construction, she said it will borrow the wagon for a couple of its annual events. A policy has yet to be formulated for lending it out to other local groups, like the Poway Historical Society, but she said something can likely be worked out.