In the era of the model t, everything was hard to make and thus expensive. I can very much imagine that that crate it came in wasn't cheap, so reuse only makes sense.

In today's age everything is so dirt cheap that packaging is just automatic pretty garbage. I'm still waiting for laws to prohibit double, triple, or even quadruple packaging at least. That tube of tooth paste really doesn't need a carton box around it, and the tube itself could be aluminum again so that the entire damned thing can be recycled, but yeah, plastics are cheaper so here we are.