The first station wagons were a product of the age of train travel. They were originally called "depot hacks" because they worked around train depots as hacks (short for hackney carriage, an old name for taxis). They also came to be known as "carryalls" and "suburbans".

Prior to mid-1930s, manufacturers assembled the framing of passenger compartments of passenger vehicles in hardwood. In automobiles, the framing was sheathed in steel and coated with colored lacquer for protection. Eventually, all-steel bodies were adopted because for their strength, cost and durability.

Early station wagons evolved from trucks and were viewed as commercials (along with vans and pickup trucks), not consumer automobiles — with the framing of the early station wagons left unsheathed because of the commercial nature of the vehicles. Early station wagons were fixed roof vehicles, but lacked the glass that would enclose the passenger compartment, and had only bench seats. In lieu of glass, side curtains of canvas could be unrolled. More rigid curtains could be snapped in place to protect passengers from the elements outside.

In 1922 Essex introduced the first affordable enclosed automobile (sedan), which shifted the auto industry away from open vehicles towards meeting consumer demand for enclosed automobiles. Station wagons too, began to be enclosed, especially in higher price categories from upmarket automobile companies. Windows in these early enclosed models were either retractable or sliding. It was only in 1924 the first closed wagon appeared.^[

Initially, manufacture of the wagon's passenger compartments was outsourced to custom body builders because of the slower nature of the production of the all-wood bodies. Companies that were major producers of wood-bodied station wagons included Mitchell Bentley, Hercules, USB&F and Cantrell and other custom builders. The roofs of "woodie" wagons were usually made of stretched canvas that was treated with a water proofing dressing.

As time went by the car companies themselves began building their own station wagons. Star (a division of Durant Motors) is usually credited as being the first car company to offer a factory-built station wagon, beginning in 1923, yet in 1919, Stoughton Wagon Company (Stoughton, Wisconsin) began putting custom wagon bodies on Model T chassis; by 1929 Ford was by far the biggest seller of station wagons. Since Ford owned its own hardwood forest and mills, it began supplying the components for a Model A wagon (although initially some final assembly would still take place away from the factory, by Briggs, in Detroit), with wood from the Mengel Company (Louisville). The same year, J. T. Cantrell put woodie bodies on Chrysler vehicles (persisting until 1931).

While commercial in its origins, by the mid-1930s, wood bodied station wagons, also known as “Woodies”, began to take on a prestige aura. The vehicles were priced higher than regular cars, but were popular in affluent communities. By 1941, the Chrysler Town and Country was the most expensive car in the company's lineup.

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