Woody Mount and the Crocker Motorcycle Company
Woody Mount and the Crocker Motorcycle Company
 Woody in 1942 |
I am the son of Woodrow W. Mount (1918 - 2008). His friends and relatives always called him Woody and he pretty much preferred that everyone address him by his nickname! He was a master machinist by profession -- which brings me to the purpose of this article. One of the earliest positions he held in his career was as a machinist/mechanic/tool-maker for the Crocker Motorcycle Company in Los Angeles, California. I recently became aware of the quality, rarity and high collector value of Crocker motorcycles and that many consider them to be the finest motorcycles ever produced in America. These motorcycles have a cadre of nearly fanatic aficianados and enthusiasts. There is even a registry of surviving motorcycles started by several original Crocker owners. For these reasons I offer here a snapshot of Woody Mount's life during his years with the company which may be of interest to Crocker enthusiasts and to add a little more to the history of the company. For additional information about the Crocker Motorcycle Company and Crocker motorcycles go to the websites listed in the links section below.
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Here is Woody's draft registration card from 1940 where he listed his employment with Al Crocker. [click on the image for a larger view of the card].
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 Woody in 1943 |
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I was also surprised to find in Woody's papers some surviving payroll documents from the last several years of his employment at the Crocker Company. Are these wages typical of those earned by machinists at industrial shops of that era? Here are scans of some of the earnings and withholding statements [click on the images for a larger view of the documents]:
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 Woody and his 1938 Harley |
Woody was an avid motorcycle rider starting about the late 1930s and continuing up to the end of the 1940s. No, he never owned a Crocker motorcycle! He once told me that he could not afford one and even if he did want one the waiting list was way too long. Besides, Woody was a Harley-Davidson enthusiast! During the late 1930s and early 1940s he competed with his Harley in the legendary Big Bear Run point-to-point motocycle race which ran from the Mojave Desert to the top of the San Bernardino Mountains in southern California. Woody was a member of the American Motorcycle Association and his AMA membership cards and lapel pins for some of the years (1941 and 1942) he worked at Crocker are shown below. Also displayed is his World War II Motorcycle Mileage Ration book issued to him in 1942 and identifying his motorcycle as a 1938 Harley-Davidson. Woody stopped riding by the end of the 1940s but continued his interest in motorcycles for the rest of his life.
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 Woody in the U. S. Navy ca. 1945 |
As you will notice in the letter of recommendation for Woody, Al Crocker had requested and received a deferment from military duty for Woody. The deferment expired and in 1944 Woody resigned from the Crocker Company and entered in the U. S. Navy to fight for his country in World War II. Because of his vocational education and his experience at Crocker it is no surprise that the Navy assigned him to operate and maintain ships' diesel engines. After Basic Engineering School he received advanced training on Fairbanks, Morse & Co. diesel engines. His certificate of completion of this training is shown below. He was then assigned to the new Landing Ship Medium (LSM) 477 which was deployed throughout the Pacifc theater of operations during the war. He remained with USS LSM 477 until after the war ended and up to when the ship was decommissioned. Woody was honorably discharged from the U. S. Navy in 1946, and his separation paper is displayed below because it mentions his employment at the Crocker Motorcycle Co. He held the rate/rating of Motor Machinist's Mate (MoMM) Third Class -- and his uniform patch for that rate/rating is shown below. He then resumed employment at the Crocker Company. [click on the two left images for a larger view of the documents]:
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Several years before Woody's death I found in a stash of old photographs a set of early photos of him at his job with fellow employees. I asked him if he knew where the shots were taken and he said he was fairly certain that they were at the Crocker Company. Based on the vintage vehicle in some of the pictures and of Woody's apparent age, I would guess that they were most likely taken during the early or middle 1940s. It has recently been verified that the photos were taken at the back of the Crocker Company building at 1330 Venice Blvd. (thank you Paris for the verification). Here are the photos:
Woody highly prized this old Crocker advertising brochure which he saved from his days at the Crocker Co. It is a twelve page promotional booklet for the 1934 Crocker Speedway model motorcycle. Click on the small image of the booklet's front page to the left to go to a separate page with larger views of all the pages scanned two pages at a time:
Woody also had in his files this old reprint of a magazine article about the Crocker Speedway racing motorcycles. It is titled "And the Crockers ... Come to Town" and appeared in a 1933 issue of The Motorcyclist. The article is an account of the introduction to and success of the new Crocker racing machine at the Emeryville Motorcycle Speedway written in a rather interesting literary style. Al Crocker probably had copies of this reprinted article available at his office to handout to prospective customers. Click on the image on the right to see a larger view of the article.
Here are some links to websites about the Crocker Motorcycle Company and Crocker motorcycles:
 Photo of a 1942 Crocker 1000cc Vee-Twin Motorcycle, on a trading card published in 1993 by Chestnut Publications. Since it was made in 1942, Woody was most certainly involved in making parts for and/or the assembly of this motorcycle. |
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Last updated:
2, 2022
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