The cook car, or "cooker," was a mobile kitchen used to provide onsite meals for workers in fields during harvest season and at active construction sites, where staff prepared and served hot meals. By eliminating the need for workers to travel to and from a main kitchen, cook cars helped work proceed faster and more efficiently. In North Dakota they were vital to the Bonanza farming enterprise, whose large-scale operations in the late 1800s and early 1900s required large staffs to plant and harvest crops. Cook cars also provided a rare job opportunity for women, as the demand for cooks and kitchen staff gave many women employment that offered financial stability and independence. This cook car was originally owned by Simon Johnson, whose farm stood four miles west of Northwood, North Dakota. From the 1920s until the 1940s, it accompanied threshing crews and gave the farm's full-time cook a place to prepare and serve meals. It fell out of use in the 1950s as the growing use of combines eliminated the need for farms to employ large threshing crews.