So before
television, computers, smart phone or even radio, how did people live,
entertain themselves…and communicate? Once again I’ve pulled a few items from my postcard collection in order
to revisit life in the first 10 years of the twentieth century.
But first
an explanation for ‘relatively limited’ verbiage you’ll note accompanying each
of the postcards… A bit of surgery was required to correct an issue with De
Quervain’s tenosynovitis impacting my left and dominant hand. Couldn’t write notes from research and I’m
not great at the ‘hunt and peck’ method of typing!
Website: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/de-quervains-tenosynovitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20371332.
Postcard dated
9/4/1903 from South Haven Michigan. With
its beaches on Lake Michigan and its location at the mouth of the Black River the
city has always been a port and resort town.
These folks were posing on either a hotel or commercial baggage
wagon. Summertime clothing sure is a lot
more comfortable these days!
Note:
Daniel Keith Ludwig was born here. He was a billionaire shipping magnate who was #1 on the first Forbes 400 "Richest Americans" list, published in 1982.
Another
summertime postcard from Michigan…this one dated 2/2/1910. Belle Isle is a 982 acre island park located
in the Detroit River between Michigan and the Province of Ontario Canada. The park is owned by the city of Detroit
Michigan.
The
Detroit Yacht Club, shown above, was built in 1905, replacing another structure
that had burned down. According to one
claim, this was the first all concrete building in the USA. Originally it was actually a rowing club. Sadly, since the club left Belle Isle in
1996, this historic structure has severely deteriorated. Estimated cost for repairs/refurbishment are
more than $20,000,000.
I have
great memories of Belle Isle as I spent an abundance of time here watching both
giant Great Lakes and ocean going freighters passing close to shore.
This
postcard dated 7/20/1904 was sent to Chicago from Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin. Fort Mackinac, located on Mackinac Island, was
built by British forces in 1781 in order to control the strategic Straits of
Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
The British didn’t give up the fort until 15 years after American
independence.
I didn’t
realize it but from 1875 to 1895, Mackinac National Park was America’s second
National Park, after Yellowstone National Park.
In 1895, it was turned over to the State of Michigan. Today it's operated as the Mackinac Island
State Park. In addition to the fort, now
a museum, the town of Mackinac Island includes many hotels, restaurants and
shops. Motorized vehicles are forbidden
on the island which can be reached from either Michigan’s Upper or Lower
Peninsulas. It’s a great place to visit!
For more
information:
Not
everyone enjoys the crowds flocking to parks and beaches as their ideal
holiday… This postcard dated 3/12/1907, displays a plethora of hunting trophies
from Dowagiac Michigan. This town is
located in the southwest corner of the state.
The name of
the town comes from the Potawatomi word meaning “fishing near home water”. Dowagiac is the headquarters of the Pokagon
Band of Potawatomi Indians…and the town is actually located in the reservation. The Pokagon Band currently operates 3 casinos
in the area. In 2011, the Chicago
Tribune reported that if the largest of these casinos were located on the Las
Vegas Strip, it would be the second largest one there!
This next postcard featuring Minnehaha Falls
is dated 9/1/1908. The falls are the key
feature of this city park located in Minneapolis Minnesota. The Minnehaha Park was designed in 1883 and
it was part of the popular steamboat Upper Mississippi River “Fashionable Tour”
in the 1800’s.
The falls
are located on Minnehaha Creek close to where it flows into the Mississippi
River. Although he never visited Minnehaha
Falls, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow helped spread its fame when he wrote his
poem, The Song of Hiawatha.
Today the
park preserves historic sites that focus on transportation, pioneering and architecture. One of the preserved structures is the
Minnehaha Princess Railway Station. The
Victorian style station was built in the mid-1870s and it is now a museum. Roughly 850,000 people visit Minnehaha Park
every year…
For more
about the railway station, you can go to http://transportationmuseum.org/minnehaha-depot-museum.
For information about the park and
Minnehaha Falls, go to https://www.minneapolisparks.org/parks__destinations/parks__lakes/minnehaha_regional_park/.
Dated
6/7/1909, this postcard shows ‘The Field Columbian Museum’ in Chicago’s Jackson
Park. This impressive structure was
built for Chicago’s 1893 World Columbian Exposition and it was called the “Palace
of Fine Arts’. As such during the Exposition
the items on display included paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture and metal
work from around the world.
Unlike the
other buildings built for the World Columbian Exposition, the Palace of Fine
Arts was constructed to last. With the
financial support of Marshall Field and others, the building was reopened as the
“Columbian Museum” and then it evolved into “The Field Museum of Natural
History” displaying artifacts focused on anthropology, botany, geology and
zoology.
When the
Field Museum moved to a new building near the center of downtown Chicago in
1921, this building in Jackson Park was left vacant. With the support of Julius Rosenwald (Sears,
Roebuck and Company), who eventually donated $5,000,000 of his own money, and
The Commercial Club of Chicago chaired by Sewell Avery (Montgomery Ward and
Company), the old but completely refurbished Palace of Fine Arts was reopened
as ‘The Museum of Science and Industry’ in 1933. In 2016, this museum welcomed 1,500,000
visitors while The Field Museum recorded 1,650,000 guests… They are both great
museums!
Website - Museum of Science and Industry: www.msichicago.org.
Now we’re
off to the west coast of the USA! This
postcard, dated 10/2/1907, is a view of the Redondo Beach pier from the Hotel Redondo. I found an earlier photo (ca 1900) on-line with the
same view where the trees weren’t as tall.
It also showed a railroad depot between the hotel and the pier. In 1887, Redondo Beach was described as “The
Gem of the Continent” in the Los Angeles Daily Herald.
The Hotel
Redondo opened in 1890. It was built in
the high Victorian style, was 3-stories tall and it had 225 rooms with all the then
current conveniences. To provide
comfortable and easy means to travel to the hotel, 2 rail lines were
constructed and serviced by first class train service that ran throughout the
day. This was a busy place. In addition to the train service, steamships
stopped by one of the 3 piers 4 times a week.
Sadly,
the Hotel Redondo burned down in 1925. To
view a good photo of this stunning hotel and for a glimpse of the grounds, you can
go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Redondo#/media/File:The_Hotel_Redondo,_ca.1900_(CHS-2131).jpg.
The last
postcard in this grouping provides an early view of Pasadena California. The card is dated 8/29/1910. It was sent to Blountville Tennessee, which
is located a couple of hours from our home... There wasn’t much smog in the Los
Angeles basin in 1010!
The
postcard is titled “General View of Ford Place, “Pasadena California”. It turns out that ‘Ford Place’ was an
exclusive subdivision. To quote an ad from
an issue of the Pasadena Star, “Destined
to be the most desirable and residence of Pasadena. A perfect park in itself. From nowhere within our city limits can such
a view of the glorious mountains be obtained…”
Pasadena
was incorporated in June of 1886… The
area was quite scenic and very popular. After
it became a stop for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, there was an
explosion in growth. Exclusive
neighborhoods were built and so were great tourist hotels. The city became a winter resort for wealthy
easterners and business boomed. By 1910,
when this postcard was sent, Pasadena had 30,000 residents. Today it has a population of about 143,000.
That’s
all for now… The hunt and peck method of typing (with one hand) made this post
quite a project!
Just
click on any of the photos to enlarge them…
Thanks
for stopping by for a visit!
Take
Care, Big Daddy Dave
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Hope your and heals quickly.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are not in any pain from your surgery and that your fingers will be nimble soon. I truly enjoyed your series of postcards and your informative narration. I am back in GA since yesterday and found more vintage postcards again. I like to look at them and think that I’d rather be in that mythical past than in today’s age with all the bad news. I say mythical because I am sure that there were many bad events and injustices then as well, but it’s fun to look at these old postcards. In France postcards were always mailed to family and friends while on vacation and there are still many postcards shops, but here they don’t. I also used to receive cards for birthdays, New Year, etc., but now they write tiny messages on Facebook, which I don’t read. When my husband died I was told many of his family and friends wrote sympathy messages on Facebook, but since I don’t read it I never knew who did and who did not. I think I only received about 4 cards (several emails), and such is the age now. At least one can look at cards later on, but as for Facebook?
ReplyDeleteWishing you a very quick healing, friend Dave … Love, cat.
ReplyDelete