Vintage vehicle, modern mission: How a 1921 Model T is sparking conversations and connection in Crawford County

By Karen Price

People can’t help themselves when they see the restored 1921 Ford Model T around town in Crawford County.

“It’s created a lot of conversation, and when I say that I mean not just conversation about the car itself, but conversation about history and, ‘Oh, my dad had one of these!’ or, ‘I have pictures of my grandparents on their wedding day and they had a Model T,’” said Joshua Sherretts, executive director of the Crawford County Historical Society. “It’s gotten people to start to talk about their stories a little bit more.”

That was the intention when the society purchased the Model T last summer using part of the funding from their PA Humanities’ Wingspan grant. The grant initiative, funded by Spring Point Partners, launched as part of PA Humanities’ 50th anniversary to support BIPOC-led and serving and rural organizations doing community-based humanities work and broaden their capacity to cultivate space for creativity and connection. 

During one of the rural cohort’s community of practice calls, Sherretts said, they had a discussion about how to get out to the people they serve versus waiting for the people to come to them. As a society that keeps historical and archival documents and runs a house museum, this was something that resonated deeply with Sherretts. Not long after, his brain still turning over ideas of how to have an engaging presence in communities throughout the county, he saw the car listed for sale. 

After working through questions about who was going to fix it, how they were going to insure it and, yes, who was going to drive it, the purchase fell into place and “History on the Road” was born. 

“It’ll seat about eight people, including the driver, so it’s not just an old car you can take to a parade,” Sherrets said. “We bought a microphone, so we can take the community on tours of the local cemetery, for instance. It can be used for programming on a regular basis. It’s a unique vehicle because it’s basically a small tour bus. They were originally used to get people back and forth between hotels and train stations and things like that.”

The society purchased the car in late summer 2024 and already it’s been to schools, other historical societies, the county fair and numerous community engagements. It was also featured in the Meadville Halloween Parade, the largest nighttime Halloween parade in the country, where Sherretts learned the finer points of keeping the vehicle from stalling when not in constant motion. 

The society charges a small fee for the car to be present at weddings and other private events, Sherretts said, and that helps pay for insurance and upkeep. Right now two people involved with the society know how to drive the car – which Sherretts said “tops out at around 42 mph going downhill with a tailwind” – and he is the primary driver. 

The History on the Road program intersected with another of the Crawford County Historical Society’s projects – collecting oral histories from county residents – in a very meaningful way when a gentleman named Dale Hunter, now in his late 80s, saw the car at a community fair in his hometown of Saegertown.

“And he just immediately fell in love with it,” Sherretts said. “He started talking about how that was the model his parents had when he was a kid and how you had to back up when you were going uphill because of the way the gas sloshed in the tank and you might stall out if the hill was too steep. That prompted a conversation, and after that he made an appointment to be interviewed (as part of the story gathering project) and he’s sat down several times now to talk about being a child during World War II and growing up in Saegertown. And his wife Mary Lou has been interviewed, too, to share her memories of growing up in a small town. So the car really helps start conversations.”

The initial interest in the car, where it came from and what it’s doing at these community events, parades and schools has also led to more in-depth conversations about the Crawford County Historical Society itself and what the organization has to offer. Oftentimes residents are surprised to learn the resources available to them if they’re interested in researching their family tree, the history of their old home or other information about the area. Society staff also plan to use it this year as a sort of oral history studio on wheels by taking it to different locations to collect stories from residents where they live, work and play. 

But the wide appeal of the car has also taught Sherretts and his staff that their audience as a historical society is much broader than they once thought.

“We’ve realized that the general population is excited about who we are and what we do,” he said. “Wingspan in general and the History on the Road program in particular has inspired us to broaden our reach. We’re working on a Black history program and a women’s history program for this year, and working with several new populations including millennials and current college students that I think we previously assumed would not be as interested in us as they are. I think there is a more receptive audience here than we ever imagined.” 

Funding for Wingspan has been provided by PA Humanities and Spring Point Partners, with additional support from private donors and the National Endowment for the Humanities.