If there was ever someone who could develop and share such enthusiasm and fervor towards recreational vehicles, it’s Wally Byam. A self-made man with a vision of the open road, the outdoors and freedom, Byam is a pioneer of the mobile, adventure-filled lifestyle of Airstream that we all know and love.
Everything that Wally Byam got in his life was through his own hard work and perseverance. Wally graduated from Stanford in 1921 and it’s believed that he paid for college by working multiple jobs. During the school year Wally would work in concessions for Stanford football and basketball games, and he was the house manager at his Sigma Chi fraternity. It’s believed that in the summers, he earned money working as a sailor, and his time spent at sea and on the road fostered a love of travel and of experiencing the world, greatly influencing some of Airstream’s early designs and a company founded on a passion for adventure.
It was in 1929 that Byam built the world’s first Airstream trailer; in 1931, he opened a small trailer factory in Culver City, California. It was at Airstream’s first factory that Byam’s dream was born and fully realized— his dream of building a travel trailer that would move like a stream of air and create first-class adventures anywhere. Americans were beginning to travel in greater numbers and Byam’s innovative trailer was perfectly compatible with this increasingly popular and mobile lifestyle of traveling.
At the time that Byam opened the first Airstream factory in California, less than 50 trailer manufacturers were registered for business. Over the next decade, demand for the mobile lifestyle exploded and the industry followed suit: by 1937, more than 400 manufacturers were competing for customers. However, Byam’s dedication to quality and attention to detail helped Airstream survive the Great Depression years.
Byam even led caravans worldwide for publicity of the Airstream brand; his most memorable caravan was his 1959 trip from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. More than eighty years since its creation, Airstream remains the most thoroughly tested brand in trailer history thanks to the leadership and innovation of Wally. In fact, Airstreams from the height of Byam’s innovation in the 1930s are still on the road today as one of the most recognizable products in the world.
We are so thankful for the legacy Wally left behind and how he inspires us all “to strive endlessly to stir the venturesome spirit” and “to open a whole world of new experiences.”
