Downtown El Dorado Springs Missouri 1908

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

Being from a small town in the middle of Texas, I have a great attraction to the small town views of the early 1900s although I don't date back quite that far. This is a circa 1908 Albertype post card with a great view of downtown El Dorado Springs Missouri along South Main Street. Population was only 2,503 in the 1910 census, around 2,212 in the 1930s and 3,775 today. It appears that the town square is on the right and in the left foreground is Kelly Barnes Clothing store. The next store down is a hardware store and on the turret I can make out "BAB__" with the date of "18__". The other store signs can not be read. The picture was probably made on Sunday since there are only 2 horse drawn carriges in sight. This postcard can be found in my Missouri listings along with 10,000 additional postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Veterans Hospital #99 Elcelsior Springs Missouri

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

There has been a lot of press coverage lately on veterans health care facilities so I thought I would feature one today. This is a nice aerial view of Veterans' Hospital #99 which is located in Excelsior Springs Missouri and is billed as "Missouri's National Health and Pleasure Resort". I was unable to verify that this veterans' hospital was still in operation. This is a 1938 Curt Teich or Curteich postcard and can be found in the Missouri listings on my website Moody's Postcards.

First National Bank of Shreveport Louisiana 1912

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

Today's post card shows the First National Bank building in Shreveport Louisiana which today would just be called an "office building". The bank probably designed, built and paid for the building and occupied the best office space location and then leased out the remainder of office space. The bank entrance is located on the corner on the street level and there is a drug store at the far right end of the building on the street level. Unfortunately, there is no signage to indicate any other occupants of the building. This is a circa 1912 Acmegraph Company postcard that was mailed from Shreveport in 1915. Acmegraph, which was in Chicago, is a lesser know publisher but, in my opinion, their postcards were high quality and the images used were excellent. This postcard can be found in my Louisiana listings along with 10,000 additional post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Baton Rouge Louisiana Hospital & Capitol

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

Today we will visit Baton Rouge, "Red Stick", Louisiana with our first postcard, circa 1908, showing the old State Capitol which looks very much like a castle. Baton Rouge became Louisiana's state capital in 1849 and Architect James Dakin was hired to design the new Capital building and he opted for a Neo-Gothic medieval castle look with a view of the Mississippi River. During the Civil War, the Union forces took the capitol in 1862 without a fight and the state government was moved to Shreveport where it remained until 1880 when it returned to Baton Rouge. The new capitol was built in 1932 when Huey P. Long was governor.

The second postcard is a 1920s E. C. Kropp postcard showing Baton Rouge General Hospital. Both of these post cards can be found in my Louisiana listings along with 10,000 more postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Downtown Leesville Louisiana 1936

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

Today's post card is from a small town in Louisiana and is typical of the rural towns in the South during the depression. Leesville Louisiana is the parish (county) seat of Vernon Parish and is the home to Fort Polk Army base. The 1910 population was 2,043, around 3,500 in the 1930s and had almost doubled to 6,793 by 2000 and that does not include Fort Polk. This downtown view shows the Leesville Hotel on the right with a drugstore in the hotel in the right foreground. This is a 1936 Curt Teich or Curteich postcard but this card was not mailed until 12 years later in 1948 so keep this lag time in mind when trying to date any postcards you have. The postmark only tells you the postcard is "at least" that old but it could be much older. This postcard can be found in my Louisiana listings along with 10,000 additional postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Hannibal & Excelsior Springs MO Swimming Pools

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

Summertime and HOT weather are here and there is nothing like a swimming pool to cool you down. Swimming pool post cards are very popular because they bring back those great childhood memories of summers at the pool. The first post card is a 1920s E. C. Kropp postcard showing the Indian Mound Park swimming pool in Hannibal Missouri with lots of activity including a double water slide.

The second postcard features the swimming pool at Maurer Lake in Excelsior Springs Missouri on a 1926 Curt Teich or Curteich postcard. Both of the postcards are available in my Missouri listings along with 10,000 additional postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Narrows Bridge Tacoma Washington 1950s

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a mile long suspension bridge on State Route 16 across the Tacoma Narrows between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state. Just about everyone has seen the motion picture film of "Galloping Gertie", the first bridge across the narrows which was opened to traffic 1 July 1940 and collapsed four months later due to wind. The replacement bridge was not opened until 14 October 1950 and that is the one on the post cards shown here. This one was nicknamed "Strudy Gertie" since design changes fixed the original problems. This bridge carried both east and west bound traffic until 15 July 2007 when a second bridge was opened to handle the east bound traffic. Both of these 1950s real photo postcards can be found in my Washington listings along with 10,000 more postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Louisville College of Dentistry Kentucky Circa 1915

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

In 1846 the Kentucky legislature combined the Louisville Medical Institute, the Louisville Collegiate Institution, and a newly created law school into the University of Louisville. The university would experience rapid growth in the 20th century, adding new schools in the liberal arts (1907), graduate studies (1915), dentistry (1918), engineering (1925), music (1932) and social work (1936). (Info courtesy of Wikipedia)

Today's postcard is a great circa 1915 view of the Louisville College of Dentistry in Louisville Kentucky which eventually became the University of Louisville School of Dentistry in 1918. This post card can be found in my Kentucky listings along with 10,000 more postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Kenton County Court House Covington Kentucky

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

Covington Kentucky is located on the northern border of Kentucky in Kenton County where the Ohio River and Licking River come together. Covington is part of the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky metropolitan area and is separated from Cincinnati by the Ohio River and from Newport by the Licking River. Covington has been a large city for a long time and had a population of 53,270 in 1910 and a population of 43,370 in the 2000 census. This size helps to explain the unusually large Kenton County Court House shown on today's 1920s post card by Kraemer Art Company. This postcard is available in my Kentucky listings along with 10,000 more postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Van Lear Kentucky 1910 Real Photo Postcard

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

I have mentioned before that "Real Photo" postcards were out of favor until the last 20 years because they are black and white and kind of drab next to the pretty colored printed postcards. Eventually however, people began to understand that this was an accurate view of a moment in time at whatever location was pictured. Academics and historians were the prime buyers for a long time but others began to realize their value. Today's post card is a real photo view of Van Lear Kentucky looking West. Doesn't look like much of a town but the writing on the back, postmarked Feb 1 1910 from Van Lear KY, is from a store owner and says in part: "all well but so busy I do not get time to eat half the time. We are doing about $5,000 business now and only have two men but getting another tomorrow. ... You can see the store in this picture, also our house marked X." The marked house is the second one on the left and I assume the store is on the right. Based on the information below from Wikipedia, this postcard shows the town in its infancy.

The town was named for Van Lear Black, a director of Consolidation Coal Company (Consol). John Caldwell Calhoun Mayo bought the coal rights to the land along Miller's Creek in Johnson County which he later sold to Northern Coal and Coke which was then bought by Consol. Consol built five miles of railroad into the area with money from Van Lear Black's Fidelity Trust and five underground coal mines were opened and operated from 1910 through 1946 and the population peaked at 4,000. In 1945, Consol merged with Pittsburgh Coal Company which then sold the Miller's Creek properties. Today, about 1600 people live in unincorporated Van Lear. This postcard can be found in my Kentucky listings on my website Moody's Postcards.

1918 Cigar Factory in Ybor City Florida

Visit Moody's Postcards, your source for vintage, collectible postcards!

Subscribe to Moody's Postcard Blog by Email

The postcard for today is a circa 1918 E. C. Kropp production showing the E. Regensburg & Sons Cigar Factory in Ybor City Florida. Ybor is a historic neighborhood in Tampa Florida that was developed by a group of cigar manufacturers beginning in 1885 and orginally populated by immigrants from Cuba, Spain and Italy. The cigar factories were the primary employers up until the 1930s and the Great Depression when the immigrants began to move away and accelerated their migration after World War II. In the late 1980s, the area began a redevelopment as a nightclub and entertainment destination. (Info thanks to Wikipedia. Be sure to go there and read the fascinating history of Ybor) This postcard can be found in my Florida listings along with 10,000 more post cards on my website, Moody's Postcards.