This collection features various views of the Bagnell Dam and other sights around the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.
The folio is marked on the front with the publication date of 1946.
Tag: 1940s
Chinatown, San Francisco, CA
This folio includes colorized photos and artworks depicting various people, events and locations in the Chinatown district of San Francisco, CA. In addition, there are a number of other notable sights included in the illustrations which are not associated with Chinatown.
The picture above numbered SF 38 – Chinatown Grant Avenue Looking North is an earlier version of the same view seen on this card from a previous posting. Here the building is the Cathay House, while the later card shows it to be the Wax Museum.
The city views from the Fairmont Hotel are now quite different. The Fairmont is surrounded by multi-story buildings, so any view of the bay or ocean would be unlikely now except from the highest floors.
The folio is not used and has no publication date, but the automobiles shown indicate it is from the 1940s.
Rochester, Minnesota “A World Famed City”
This folio includes city view of Rochester, MN, emphasizing the many significant buildings and organizations located there.
It is not clear what organization the Junior High Barber Shop is, but it no longer exists at the location indicated on the folio. Probably just an evocative name, as there is no indication that there was a Junior High school nearby.
As can be seen on the front of the folio, this was mailed in 1946, establishing the date the folio was likely published.
Capitol Building, Salt Lake City, UT
The weekend brings a linen-textured colored card of the Utah state capitol building.
The description on this card is quite lengthy:
UTAH STATE CAPITOL, EXTERIOR
Utah may be justly proud of its State Capitol.The building was finished and formally opened to the public October 9, 1916. From its commanding location, a wonderful view of the whole of Salt Lake Valley may be had. The Capitol proper is 240 feet wide, 404 feet long and 285 feet high. The general style of the architecture is pure Corinthian. The diameter of the dome is 64 feet. Fifty-two columns 42 feet high grace the exterior. Total cost: $2,739,528.54.
–This card was mailed from the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce to my mother when she was 14 years old. The only remark on the card is “We are temporarily out of booklets.” This indicates that my mother had sent a letter requesting a booklet or brochure about the Utah government or building in hopes of receiving it in the mail for a school project or a scrapbook. These sorts of requests by students to businesses and government departments throughout the country were common in this era.
The card was mailed April 12, 1946. All the writing and addressing are typed, an unusual approach given the difficulty in feeding postcards through a manual typewriter roller without permanently curling it.
Old Crater Trading Post, Bluewater NM
This is a wonderful depiction of the kind of hardscrabble businesses that popped up all along the western portions of the old Lincoln Highway/Route 66. The appearance of the group posing in front of the building on the right gives the distinct impression this was a business established on or near reservation land that the highway passed through.
This business clearly sold various Native American crafts and souvenirs for travelers passing by, and there appears to be a woman weaving a blanket in front of the building on the left. They also sold Mobil Gas, as indicated by the sign over the pumps. The presence on the left of the ‘woody’ station wagon puts this photo in the post-war 1940s.
These kinds of establishments can still be found on the side roads off of I-40 through New Mexico and Arizona, some still intact but updated and expanded over the years.
Will Rogers Memorial, Claremore OK
A formal photo of the approach and front entrance of the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, OK.
There is another image of this particular angle in a previous post here. The photos were likely taken no more than a few years apart, but it’s hard to tell with the coloring on the other image.
Ice Lake, Iron River, MI
This is another old style postcard, this time featuring Ice Lake, near the town of Iron River in Michigan.
These old style postcards are actually photographs formatted as a postcard, and marked with descriptions in white lettering on the bottom. The back of the postcard is typically unmarked except for a stamped impression of the word Post Card, a stamp box, and two headings labelled correspondence and address. Presumably this was to help those unfortunate enough not to know how to correctly send a postcard.
It is unused and undated, but is likely contemporaneous with other similar cards in this collection, and dates from the 1940’s.
Epworth Heights, Ludington MI
This week a number of old style cards, starting with this one showing the Epworth Heights resort as it looked in its heyday. The building pictured is the main hotel, which no longer has rooms available and is used for resort activities instead.
Regrettably, the postcard, which was mailed, has been severely damaged on the right side, probably from being pasted into a scrapbook.
The postmark and the clothing style of the woman in the lower left corner confirm this photo as from the late 1940’s, and it was postmarked 9 May 1950.
Korczak Ziolkowski
This is a portrait of the man whose dream it was to build a monument to Crazy Horse, Korczak Ziolkowski. He is pictured in front of the mountain that would, over the course of the rest of his life and beyond, be slowly sculpted into the vision he had of the famous Native American leader. The work continues, but with some criticism from the Lakota people and descendants of Crazy Horse.
Unfortunately, this postcard was at one time glued into an album or scrapbook, and the resulting damage to the back has obscured the description. An image search did not uncover any other copies of this card currently on line. The description does mention him by name, and the name of his stallion: Warrior.
The clothes and appearance are consistent with other photos from the late 1940’s, which would coincide with a vacation trip my mother’s family took through this area.
Little Norway, Blue Mountain, WI
This is a colorized card of the iconic building that represents the Little Norway collection in Blue Mountain, Wisconsin. It is a chapel building, originally built in Norway but was disassembled and moved to Wisconsin and reconstructed. The Little Norway website indicates that the exhibit, which has been privately owned for 75 years, is now closed with the plan to reorganize ownership and management, presumably through a charitable trust.
Oddly, there is no description at all on the back of the card, save the note shown below the photo above. For more about this building and the larger collection, visit the website linked above.
This is consistent with other postcards acquired in the early 1940’s.