For several years before and after 1920, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs participated in a series of motor camping caravans, which have been described as the first notable linking of the automobile with out-door recreation.

The idea for the camping trips seems to have germinated in a trip by the Fords and the Edisons to the Florida Everglades in 1914. It took firm root in California in 1915, when Ford, Firestone, and Edison motored from near Los Angeles to San Diego.

On an ancient waterwheel in West Virginia in 1918,the Four Vagabonds pose for a cameraman. Left to right are Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, John Burroughs and Thomas A. Edison.