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Discharged from the Navy in the summer of 1945, 29-year-old Sam and Anna Mary tried to rent a utility trailer to move their possessions from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. It couldn't be done. They had to take only what they could fit in the car.
"Small luggage-type passenger automobile trailers were being rented from 'rental lots' in Los Angeles. Each lot had from 20 to 40 trailers which were rented locally for approximately $2 per day," recalled Shoen in his book You and Me. "I recognized that here was an item with considerable utility value which had not been exploited at all in the Northwest or in the San Francisco-Oakland area. I was intrigued with the business potential of this idea, especially from the standpoint of one-way rentals."
The Shoens reasoned that many other families had a need similar to theirs: the short-term availability of a trailer that could be rented "here" and left "there." No one, at that time, seemed ready or willing to serve that need.
One of our earliest trailer rentals.
With a 1937 Ford and $5,000 in savings, Sam, Anna Mary and their young son moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. During the drive, they came up with the name and formulated the outline of what was to become the U-Haul Trailer Rental System.
The Shoens launch U-Haul in the summer of 1945. The first trailers were bought from welding shops or second hand from private owners. Within two weeks of leaving Los Angeles, the first U-Haul trailer was parked on a service station lot and being offered for rent. By the end of 1945, 30 4' x 7' open trailers were on service station lots in Portland, Vancouver and Seattle, Wash.
An identity was established. First, the trailers were painted bright orange. Secondly, the name U-Haul Co. was established. Third, trailers were imaged on the sides and back with a sales message - "U-Haul Co.," "Rental Trailers," "$2.00 Per Day" - always advertising themselves whether on the road or on display. Lastly, trailer rentals were merchandised from service station outlets. A commission structure for dealers was established, and much of the early recruitment was done by a customer who was offered a discount on their trailer rental for establishing a U-Haul Rental Agent (now called U-Haul Dealers) at their destination.
The company was not an overnight success. The purchased trailers - generally a frame and tongue built on the running gear of scrapped automobiles, what Sam would later call "junkers" - broke down with painful frequency, often costing more to repair than could be covered by rental fees. That winter, to cut expenses "to the bone," Sam and Anna Mary moved in with her folks on the family ranch. They were broke but believed they had a business. Based on his appearance of success, Sam obtained credit from a local lumber yard and was able to obtain war-surplus steel from a Navy yard.
By the end of 1949, it was possible to rent a trailer one way from city to city throughout most of the United States and by 1955 throughout most of Canada. And the rest, as they say is history.
In 1952, a unique financing plan - the Fleet Owner Program - was created to provide capital for growth during the 1950s. Under this plan, individuals or groups of individuals could purchase a fleet of 30 or more U-Haul Co. trailers. The trailer owner would then contract with ARCOA, Inc. for the operation of their trailer fleet in the U-Haul Trailer Rental System and shared the income from the rental of the trailers. By the end of 1959, the U-Haul Trailer fleet consisted of 42,600 trailers.
U-Haul celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2005 as the industry giant with the largest rental fleet in the world that can be rented from over 13,700 independent dealers and over 1,300 company-owned U-Haul centers. U-Haul is one of the industry's largest operators of self-storage facilities, the world's largest installer of permanent trailer hitches and the world's largest single-brand Yellow Pages advertiser.