E. L. Moore's Outhouses

This is the last post in the models of E. L. Moore series. Maybe it’s fitting that the last one deals with the most obscure of E. L. Moore’s projects. 

[An E. L. Moore Outhouse; J. Collier collection]

He was a big fan of vaudeville comedian Chic Sale who performed a popular routine about a master craftsman of outhouse construction, Lem Putt. 

E. L. Moore took on the role of Lem Putt’s equivalent in HO scale and produced many and varied miniature outhouses. Given that he modelled rural America in the late-1800 and early-1900 era, outhouses were still a prominent feature of daily life, so modelling them wasn’t out of the ordinary, although he did go at it with a unique gusto :-) If you look closely at photos of his Elizabeth Valley Railroad you’ll see that all buildings have an outhouse – as one would expect.

[An E. L. Moore Outhouse; J. Collier collection]

It turns out he was known to make outhouses and give them as gifts to friends. I suspect they were much appreciated :-)

This one has an awful lot of cross-ventilation, as noted on the bottom.

From what I can tell he built a lot of outhouses, but the only one of E. L. Moore’s publications that featured them was the article A Mighty Relaxin’ Job that appeared in the November 1975 issue of the NMRA Bulletin. 

That article featured something like 18 outhouses! Maybe the whole subject of outhouses was outside what the national, mainstream magazines considered decent conversation. Who knows? Looking back, this whole outhouse schtick, whether from Chic Sale or E. L. Moore, seems quaint and rather tame. Not too mention funny.

[This Outhouse and the ones that follow are from the J.R. Fisher collection]

Maybe there was some Earth, Wind and Fire influence on this one :-) but there's not much witty repartee I can add about this outhouse medley without wearing out my welcome, so scan on through the images and I'll meet you at the end. 

Ok, well, I'll break my silence about this one. The nicely modelled catalog doesn't compensate for all that 'ventilation'. Hopefully this one was placed deep in a forest.

Apparently '69 was a good year for outhouses.

Another from the big outhouse year: '69.

And that's that. 

One more thing, if you've missed any posts in the series, here's the index.