Got back yesterday from my stint at the Chickasha swapmeet. As usual I had a few of my smudge pots burnin' in front of my spots as attention getters, been doin' this for a few years now. They have always been popular but this year everybody wanted to talk 'bout them. I heard more cool stories 'bout smudge pots this weekend. I've been fasinated with these things since I was a kid and saw them along the road from Bonham, Tejas to Sayre, Oklahoma in the late 60's goin' to the grandparents like every weekend back then. I've been pickin' these things up for 4 or 5 years now when I can find decient ones, kindo' collectin' 'em but not really. I've picked up 6 with 'bout 3 diff types over the years. I burn 'em with citronella oil in the driveway to keep the 'skeeders off me while workin' on the cars. Anybody else mess around with these things, or know anyting 'bout them, any cool stories (I'll tell the ones I heard later if anybody is interested). Over the years I've meet a couple of guys out at swapmets that collect 'em an' they say there is little around on them. 'Bout all I've found on the web is this: Smudge Pots ...but that seems to be 'bout it. any body else so afflicted? -HL
Don't know much about them, but thanks for stirring up some memories of growing up in the 60's! I definitely recall seeing these things burning on the side of the highways when I was really young. Now I gotta find me some!! LOL
I'm too young to remember them(31) or they did'nt have them in my area. Were they some kind of street lamp? Were they mounted high on a pole like a normal street light? An open flame shot out the top? You bought it up so I figured I'd ask. Thanks. Bily
I remember them being usedin fruit groves when there was a frost, in an attempt to keep the ground air above freezing. I bet the EPA killed them.
I remember them from my days in Boy Scouts. We used to set them up on the trail to the campfire. It was really pretty cool. 'Course, the ones we had were absolutely filthy, so when you picked them up, you'd get black gunk and soot all over you. Those ****ers would burn forever. There's a guy who has an old pickup truck that shows up at some of the shows 'round here and has a crate full of old smudge pots painted gloss black with red tops. Not exactlt sure why he displays them with his truck, but they're cool nonetheless.
I remember them when I was VERY young;they used them around my town(in M***achusetts)to mark construction areas where they had dug trenches or the like along the roads.The public works department would come along and light them at dusk.We liked to tip them over and have the fuel spill out and run along the dirt.I think I was about 6 or 7 then and just flexing my juvenile delinquent wings.
wpa was workers publis ***. i think it was from the depression days when they hired everyone and gave them a shovel to build uour roads
I've got one about 10 feet away, up on a ledge. small towns in SD would use them to mark off road construction areas.
Shoebox, you know the saw-horses an/or the plastic barels with the battery powered flashers used at road construction sites now? This is the low tech version of the same thing from the late 20's through the early 70's (guessin' here) and yes, there is a flame commin' out the top. How I remember them is in long lines on the ground leadin' up to an through the construction sites at night. I think they used them up into the 70's but don't know when they changed over to the battery version for sure. DrJ, I heard that from couple of guys I talked to in Chickasha this last weekend. Had never heard that before livin' in Oklahoma most of my life. Warpig, That one's real cool but, nope, I don't have any parts. I'll keep an eye out for you one though. I have one simiular with the flat sheet metal ring like yours and all the diff ones I've got seem to have the same size thread in the top. I haven't found many part but I do find alot with rusted out bottoms that I could pick up for parts. One story I heard this weekend that I thought was funny: this ol' man grinnin' said when he was a teenager in the 50's they liked to try to hit them along side the road. Since they usually sat on gravel, if you ran over them just right you could push them down an' bury them in the gravel, that's what they tried to do. One of them they tried to hit they clipped an' it shot out into a wheat field settin' it on fire. -HL
I p***ed by Root's dad Thursday, seen that 4door sedan for sale around the corner anbd never made it to another booth. Sorry I missed you guys.
They were all over where I grew up(Southern Cal). They did not look like that. In fact they were the perfect height to set a mail box on. Tim
I'm with you on this one DrJ 1950 in Azusa when they fired the smudge pots (much bigger than the one shown) there would be soot all over the cars and ground. couldn't breathe that stinkin fog! Oh thanks for the memories
One of the ol' men that stopped by my spot to chat 'bout the pots was a retired Tejas Department of Transportation worker. He said one of his jobs at one time was takin' care of their smudge pots. I had heard they put 'bout everything imaginable in them that would burn, so I asked him what they used. "Kerosene an a little oil" Not sayin' when the kerosene ran low they didn't put something else in 'em, but that's what he told me. Pretty much just road side kerosene lamps. ...but who ever thought it was a good idea to have a flamin' torches 'bout the same height as a gas tank, kindo' amazes me. -HL
do a search ***led "flambeau",at least that's the name i remember seeing on the side of some old ones. haven't seen any in use in about 30 years
I forget- do they use a simple wick like a hurricane lamp? filling it with citronella and putting it into service sounds good, should keep mosquitoes at bay.
Naw, they use a round wick 'bout as big around as your thumb. I tried a rolled up shop rag in one, didn't work too well. You can buy new wicks and new Toledo torches here: Toledo Torches These are new American made from the original dies from the Toledo Torch Company. -HL
These were sold as a safety kit for trucks. Similar to the plastic triangles that they use today. The kit was complete with screws to bolt the metal box to the running board. Twist the black cover and the wick pops up for lighting. I remember the round pots shown above. They kept you out of the fresh concrete at night.
That's a nice set Tommy, I've been looking for a good set like that, all the ones I've found are trashed or missing torches. There is another set simular that comes in a tube. Another thing if anybody's decides to light one of these things up, find something before hand to smother it out with, 'cause that's 'bout the only way to put these things out without letting them burn out. The rings in the ones above were not only for handlin' hot torches but use to hold a cap or cup for smothering the torch out. They are all mosts always missing though, I've only seen a couple. Some were chained to the tourch or hinged so they are usually still with the torch. I've got an old truck wheel center I use but a beer can cut in half works in a pinch, you'll have to hold it down with your boot though to get it out. -HL
Here are the three types I've currently got: the one left is a Toledo the one in the middle is a Dietz Highway Torch, that hinge on the top has a slider for holdin' on the missing cap. the one on the right is my favorite, but no markings. -HL
Wakmart is selling those, copper or stainless with extra wicks and citronella oil. I think I paid $10 or 15
The area I grew up in So Cal was heavy in citrus orchards. When you knew it was going to drop below freezing you could go out to the groves and get make some gas money lighting smudge pots for the farmers. When it was REALLY cold the air would get so sooty from these things it was like fog. This was back before smog arrived -- now smog has pretty much turned all the groves to bone dust anyway
when i was a kid i thought they were bombs off of looney toons, just one of those things that kids dig, ive got one cherry toledo thats always full of citronella.
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