Popular Science Monthly 



87 



Plan and finished appearance of the box-car hotel. There are eight guest rooms and the land- 

 lord's apartment, besides hotel kitchen and storeroom. The two-story effect is only simulated 



Owens Valley, California, Has a 

 Freight-Car Hotel 



OWENYO is a railroad junction point in 

 Owens Valley, California, east of the 

 Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mining and 

 agricultural development have made it 

 important. But it had no hotel. George 

 Brown built one with the best material that 

 he could find. He couldn't get steel for a 

 frame or onyx for a foyer, but he could get 

 box cars. So he built his hotel of box cars. 



Standard box cars are thirty-four feet 

 four inches long, eight feet wide and 

 eight high. Three of these 

 unwheeled and with proper 

 foundation, were placed in 

 the form of a hollow 

 square, inner corners 

 connecting, with the 

 open space facing the 

 tracks. In this open- 

 ing a front was built, 

 with double doors 

 and large windows. 

 The center is a din- 

 ing-room thirty-four 

 feet four inches square 

 well floored, and lighted 

 by many windows in a 

 superstructure which 

 gives the appearance of a 

 second story. Across 

 the front is a fifty-foot 

 porch eight feet wide and 

 across the rear another. 

 Behind that is a fourth car, constituting the 

 residence of the landlord and his family. 



Each of the side cars is divided into three 

 comfortable bedrooms, and at the rear, on 

 either side, another guest room is built in, 



making eight guest rooms in all. The rear 

 car in the building is the kitchen. 



The entire building is metal-roofed, 

 plaster-board finished and paneled through- 

 out the interior. Every room has a large 

 window. 



WILLIAM J 

 of St. Paul, 



A float on the rising water lifts a lever 

 which operates the alarm mechanism 



Turn on the Water in Your Bath. It 



Can't Overflow. This Alarm Will 



Warn You in Time 



ABERLE, 

 M innesota, 

 has devised an alarm 

 which tells you when your 

 bathtub has been filled to 

 whatever depth you de- 

 sire. Instead of having 

 to watch the rising 

 water, you simply ad- 

 just the alarm and 

 let it do the rest. 



A light hollow 

 float is suspended in 

 the water by a verti- 

 cal iron rod. The 

 rising water raises the 

 float nearer and nearer to 

 a horizontal lever con- 

 nected with a bell. When 

 the rod rises high enough 

 its upper end touches the 

 bell trigger. 



A spring is immediate- 

 ly released by the trigger, 

 a clapper is brought into action and the 

 bell rings. By adjusting the height of the 

 bell mechanism, the height to which the 

 water must rise to sound the alarm can 



be regulated as desire^. 



