Ah, the memories you have stirred up! In about 1955 (Lord, was I ever that young?) my father came home towing something called a Kwik-Kamp. It was basically a big box made of 3/4" marine plywood on a truck axle and tires. Heavy! Like a cigar box, it opened by folding the top up and over, except that the hinge for folding was along the bottom edge of the side. As it opened, it pulled a canvas tent on an aluminum frame behind it, so when the unfold was complete, the tent was already erected on a wood floor. Over the next few years, my Mom and Dad, my brother and I traveled thousands of miles with that thing, seeing most of the big National Parks west of the Mississippi, from Mexico well up into Canada. Never saw another one, and unfortunately the trailer burned in a storage shed fire a few years later.
Many years later, I tried to find some history and pictures of the thing. No luck at all. The folks at the RVMH museum in Elkhart had no clue, even though I made some PowerPoint drawings of the thing to help prod memories. Finally, tucked away in an obscure corner of the Internet, I found links to two articles in the PopUp Camper Archive that mentioned it.
http://www.popupcamperhistory.com/kwikkamp1957may.html
http://www.popupcamperhistory.com/kwikkamp1959feb.html
A whole lot different from today's rigs, right? And yes, it was called a camper or camping trailer. Has anyone here camped in anything earlier?
Bill