Solid Foundations Our Tiny House History, Compiled by Thom Stanton

Since the dawn of human existence, people around the world have lived in small dwellings and moveable homes. Whether driven by interests in economy of cost, simplicity of lifestyle, or a need for mobility, our interest in construction of small dwellings is an ingrained human trait that stands alongside the earliest foraging of food and first lighting of fires with flint. 

Statistically, home sizes in many parts of the world have ballooned over the past century. Sadly, the size of one’s dwelling is often used as an indication of success and value of net worth. For many, however, today’s Tiny House Movement implies mass interest is smaller dwellings, with driving factors that parallel those of our forebears for economy, simplicity, and mobility.

An unabridged history of housing would fill a library. Our abbreviated version merely attempts to align today’s most typical types of dwellings with their nearest neighbors from the standpoint of standardization and regulation. We also include a few historic examples as familiar sights and milestones along the roadside of our tiny timeline.

Tiny House Timeline

• 20,000 BC – Altaians cross Bering Strait into North America using available resources for shelter
• 1764 – First manufactured home, 2-story panelized home, shipped from London to Cape Ann, MA
• 1800 – Newly forged Federal Road brings early frontier folk westward in wagons 
• 1854 – Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden as a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings after living two years, two months, and two days in his hand-built cabin
• 1906 – Earthquake Shacks mass produced as homes for more than 16,000 people
• 1908 – Honor Bilt Modern Homes sold by Sears, Roebuck, & Co. as kit houses (370 designs; 70,000 units sold through 1940) which spanned a cottage industry of kit houses in the early 20th Century
• 1910 – First first “auto campers” built for commercial sale, with first 5th wheel hitch DIY built to attach a travel wagon to a roadster
• 1913 – First annual caravan camping trip for Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs, which drew national attention and may have help increase popularity of RVing
• 1919 – Tin Can Tourists founded as the first camping club in the US
• 1922 – First boom of RVing in full-swing with rise of popularity in visiting national parks
• 1926 – Assembly line production begins in New York, though most were still used for vacations
• 1929 – After the crash and during the Depression, travel trailers were used as inexpensive homes
• 1940 – Inspired by metal grain silos, Buckminster Fuller devises the Dymaxion Deployment Unit 
• 1941 – Rationing stopped consumer RV production, with some converted to wartime manufacturing of mobile structures used as emergency housing and mobile lodging near factories
• 1944 – GIs return home and kick-off a 2-decade RV boom on new interstate highway system
• 1950 – House Trailers of 8’ or less in width marketed as inexpensive housing; mobile home parks pop-up on the outskirts of towns across the US
• 1954 – Starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, comedy film The Long, Long Trailer released about a couple who spend a year on the road in their trailer home 
• 1956 – First “ten wide” mobile home introduced, increasing living space but requiring professional relocation
• 1960 – Mobile Home Construction Code developed by the Mobile Home Craftsmen Guild
• 1963 – The Recreational Vehicle Industry Association was founded as Travel Trailer and Camper Manufacturers 
• 1967 – Charles Kuralt captures romance of full-time RVing in his Life on the Road series
• 1970s – One mobile home was built for every three site-built homes
• 1974 – Federal National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 adopted for administration by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and establishes “a reasonable standard for construction, design, and performance of a manufactured home, which meets the needs of the public, including the need for quality, durability and safety.” 
• 1973 – Lloyd Kahn and Bob Easton release Shelter, a book about indigenous construction methods
• 1976 – Division of RVs and Mobile Homes becomes official as HUD Code is introduced for “factory built” factory built dwelling units constructed on a chassis 
• 1987 – Lester Walker publishes, Tiny Houses: Or How to Get Away From It All
• 1988 – HUD issues internal memorandum clarifying means for calculating 400 sqft maximum for PMRVs
• 1994 – International Code Council (ICC) formed, combining three predominant building codes as their code base
• 1997 – First edition of the ICC’s building code released, beginning its triennial review and release cycle
• 1998 – Sarah Susanka releases The Not So Big House, an Amazon #1 Best Seller
• 2004 – Patricia Foreman & Andy Lee release the book, A Tiny Home to Call Your Own which helping popularize the emerging term “Tiny House Movement”
• 2006 – Katrina Cottage I delivered at cost of a FEMA trailer ($70,000/unit)
• 2007 – Oprah Show squeezes cameras into Jay Shafer 96 sqft. tiny house and Kent Griswold’s Tiny House Blog launches catalyzing what becomes known as the Tiny House Movement 
• 2008 – RVIA passes internal resolution raising RVs minimums 320 sqft max to 400 sqft, violating accepted protocol for industry regulated code compliance for issuance of certification seals
• 2012 – Recreational Park Trailer Industry Association (RPTIA) incorporated into RVIA
• 2015 – American Tiny House Association founded by tiny house advocate and educator, Elaine Walker
• 2016 – Tiny House Industry Association founded by long time manufactured housing executive Darin Zaruba
• 2016 – National Organization for Alternative Housing (NOAH) founded to provide inspection services for THOWs
• 2016 – RV inspection guru Chuck Ballard opens THOW inspection service Pacific West Tiny Homes
• 2016 – ICC members vote in Tiny House Codes under IRC 2018 Appendix V which requires adoption for official use
• 2017 – Tiny House 3.0 begins with leaders seeking to bring formality to THOWs as “Movable Tiny Houses” 

Key Takeaways:

1. Prefabrication in the 1700s scores high points for cool-factor.
2. Conventional construction establishes a basis for dwellings.
3. Early recreational vehicles provided means for house trailers which begat mobile homes. 
4. In an interest to establish rules to regulate minimum standards for housing, the 400 sqft mark was used to delineate manufactured housing from recreational vehicles. 
5. Today, three predominant types of structures are recognized as dwellings: Site-built homes, Manufactured Homes (MH), and Recreational Vehicles (RV – though these are deemed only for temporary, part-time, recreational use).
6. Tiny Houses on Wheels are officially recognized as RVs if they carry a certification seal.
7. Tiny Houses have a home in the IRC as an Appendix (see Tiny House Codes) which provides HUGE potential for tiny house builders, communities, and homeowners.