Postcards featuring unusual buildings Part 5

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As we continue with the "unusual buildings" theme going into the Labor day weekend, I have selected a private residence and a public library. The residence belonged to George M. Pullman, of pullman railroad car fame, and is located on one of the islands in Thousand Islands New York. This bird's eye view brings to mind the old real estate adage of "Location, location, location!" and illustrates just how much this mansion towered over the "humble" homes on the nearby islands. This postcard is available in my New York listings, along with more than 10,000 additional postcards, available on my website at Moody's Postcards.

The public library is a massive building located in Butte Montana with beautiful windows and entrance ways set off from the red stone in white stone work that is masterfully done. Based on the size of the building, all of the books in Montana must have been kept here.This postcard is available in my Montana listings, along with more than 10,000 additional postcards, available on my website at Moody's Postcards.

Postcards featuring unusual buildings Part 4

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Today's "unusual buildings" include a High School and an Armory Gymnasium combination. The High Point North Carolina High School is a 1920s view of a rambling structure that looks more like a beautiful hotel.

The second entrant is the Gymnasium and Armory at the State University in Columbus Ohio and is a massive stone structure with many castle looking features that provide a significant deterrent to any would be attackers. Be sure to check out the other armory postcards in my 21 July 2007 blog. Both of these postcards are available on my website at Moody's Postcards in the North Carloina listings and the Ohio listings.

Postcards featuring unusual buildings Part 3

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The postcards for today are a continuation of the last post on Tonopah Nevada. Last time we showed two postcards with improvised building materials and the two postcards today show two more unique homes built during the great silver rush in the early 1900s. The first is titled the "Tin Can House" and is built of coal oil cans. If fact, if you look at the door on the barrel house in the last blog, it appears to be constructed of the same type cans.

The second house is constructed with bottles and has two dogs guarding the front doors. Both of these postcards are available in my Nevada listings along with more than 10,000 additional postcards available on my website at Moody's Postcards.

Postcards featuring unusual buildings Part 2

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Today I am continuing a feature on unusual buildings and we hit the motherload in Tonopah Nevada. When the gold mines in California quit producing, a miner named James Butler left California and began ranching in Nye County Nevada. His burros wandered off one night and while looking for them he discovered the silver ore. Three months later he finally filed eight claims and six of them turned into some of the biggest produces in the state. He eventually made about $336,000 when he sold the mines but the discovery would eventually produce over $150 million. This great silver rush brought miners from California and Alaska as well as the rest of states and the sudden influx into a barren area with no existing infrastructure created a drastic need for shelter. The first postcard shows some of the makeshift residences that were basically made from whatever was available and built in the mountainside.

The second postcard shows "The Barrel House", with the owners faithful dog at the doorway, which was primarily constructed from empty barrels. Both of these postcards are available in my Nevada listings along with more than 10,000 additional postcards available on my website at Moody's Postcards.

Postcards featuring unusual buildings Part 1

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The postcard of the day comes from Middlesboro Kentucky and features the Chamber of Commerce of this town in the middle of the coal mining area. This is a 1926 postcard that shows the exterior of the building which is built entirely out of coal. After running across this card, I decided to feature several buildings built with unusual materials in the next few blogs. This postcard is available in my Kentucky listings along with more than 10,000 additional postcards available on my website at Moody's Postcards.

Part 2 Hot Springs National Park Arkansas

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One interesting part of the history of the Hot Springs Baths is the part African Americans played in the operation AND use of the baths. Before the Civil War, blacks worked throughout the bath houses but after the Civil War, when Jim Crow laws were in effect, blacks were still allowed to work in the bathhouses but did not have free acess to bathing in them. The federal government began providing free baths for poor people after 1878 by building a frame bathhouse over the "mud hole" spring and continued to provide a free segregated bathhouse for indigents until 1956.
In the early 1900s, bathhouses owned and operated by African Americans were opened but the local tradition of segregation continued until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was passed. In the 1880s black patrons could buy tickets at the Ozark Bathhouse, the Independent Bathhouse and possibly the Rammelsberg Bath House BUT they were not allowed to bathe during the hours considered optimum by prescribing physicians and particularly from 10 AM to 12 noon. The Crystal Bathhouse which opened in 1904 was the first constructed for exclusive use of African Americans. In 1908, the lease was transferred to the Knights of Pythias and in 1913 the Crystal burned in a fire that destroyed 50 city blocks.
The Pythian was built on the site of the Crystal Bathhouse by the Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, an insurance organization, and opened in December 1914.
In the early 1920s, the Woodmen of the Union, a fraternal insurance company, built the Woodmen of the Union Building which was the primary health care facility for the African American community and included a hospital, doctor and dental offices and a bathhouse since other medical facilities in the city were for whites only. The hospital treated members free and also treated black indigent patients referred from other health care facilities in Hot Springs. The African American National Baptist Convention bought the Woodmen of the Union Building in 1948 and spent 2 years remodeling it.
Other than management, the mainstay of the bath industry from early times was the bath attendant and until the 1980s, most were African American. Massage services were added in some bathhouses in the 1893 and later chiropodists (for bathers' foot problems). By the early 1900s, all bathhouses offered massage.
The first two postcards below show the men's area of the bathhouse with one showing black attendants (postcard printed in 1931) while the other has white attendants (printed in 1923).
All of these postcards are available on my website at Moody's Postcards.
The last two postcards below show the ladies area of the bathhouse and do NOT show black attendants BUT the first postcard was printed in 1913 and the second one is a reprint of the first one (date of reprint unknown) with the caption "White Attendants" added.