Peninsula In Passage
The Robe Detroit in Driver? Not exactly, but Driver did rank a mention in automotive history in 1923/24 when an open gas powered car, the Robe, was built in a local barn turned factory. The Robe Manufacturing Company, headquartered in Norfolk, produced the early prototype car with a factory test body and a six cylinder engine. Local lore says that the car, apparently a one-off, was a public relations ploy. An automotive factory may have been planned as the centerpiece for a new community to be built in the Dismal Swamp between Driver and Magnolia. Some claim that unpaved streets, laid out in a grid pattern around the projected factory, were still visible a few years ago. But so far, no one has moved in. Running Truck
Truck farming means growing vegetables, fruits and flowers as a cash crop. Truck refers to the crop. Running truck refers to getting those crops to market - by rail, water or overland truck. The unique climate and soil in the Suffolk area enables crops to mature four to six weeks earlier than in northern states. Farmers recouping from the Civil War switched from cotton to truck as their major crop and captured the early spring market in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
Early on railroads and steamship lines insured that produce - potatoes, spinach, kale, strawberries, melons and more - picked and packed on one day could be shipped overnight by rail and steamships to major east coast city markets for sale the next day. Announcements and Classifieds alerted residents and farmers to steam ship pick up schedules. By the 1880s truck farms had replaced plantations and the Eberwines, Matthews, Ames, Rabeys, Wrights, Carneys, Trotmans, Jordans, Lassiters, Richardsons, Gaskins, Joneses, Outlaws, Olds, Lees, and others successfully marketed their produce before trucks as we know them were on the roads.
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