Littlefield Building Austin Texas 1908

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Today I want to show you another post card which I just sold because it is an excellent image from circa 1912. The Littlefield Building is touted on the postcard as the "Financial Center" in Austin Texas and it is an impressive eight story building that is beautiful. The thing that caught my eye when I was packing this up to mail out was the pergola that covered the top of the building. I wondered just what this area looked like back then so I went to my Austin Texas postcard stock to see if I might have a view showing the top.

Unfortunately, I did not find a view of the pergola but I did find a 1940s E. C. Kropp postcard showing the same building without the pergola and this view revealed the building was on Congress Avenue just down the street from the state capitol. In place of the missing pergola, there is an extra floor on the top of the building. All of this begs the question, is the 1912 version an artist rendering which was changed when the building was actually built or was the top floor added later. Fast forward to 22 December 2008 and I have been sent the answer to my question by a reader. The building originally had a roof garden as shown above but then the Scarbrough Building came along across the street with eight stories so George Littlefield removed the roof garden, added a ninth story and became the tallest skyscraper between New Orleans and San Francisco. This is why postcards are so much fun. Join the party!!

Green County Court House Monroe Wisconsin 1908

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I just sold this circa 1908 postcard today and as soon as I saw it I knew it was going to be today's blog postcard. I love these old majestic court houses and this one is right up there with the best of them and I wanted to be sure it is out there for the public to enjoy. It has it all with the beautiful red brick and white stone construction, the elaborate covered entrance, a round and square turret, the silver roof and the clock tower. We can only hope that it is still standing today. Similar post cards can be found on my website Moody's Postcards.

Seaside Pavilion Corpus Christi Texas 1909

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Well it is summer time and a day at the beach would be great. Our postcard of the day is a circa 1909, since it has a July 5 1909 San Antonio & Corpus Christi RPO (Railroad Post Office) postmark, and shows the beautiful and very large Seaside Pavilion and a glimpse of the establishments along the beach. This pavilion was very popular during the early 1900s as well as the better known ones in Atlantic City and other large cities. This post card is available in my Texas listings along with 10,000 more postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

White Springs Florida Spring House 1920s

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Today's postcards were meant to be the blog of the day due to a stroke of serendipity. This morning I sold the first post card below and while looking it up on my website I noticed the second post card from White Springs Florida. The first view is the exterior of the Spring House on the Suwannee River in White Springs Florida and is a 1949 Curteich postcard. Bryant Sheffield bought land for a plantation in 1835 that included this land along the Suwannee River and began to tout the the healing powers of the sulfurous spring water he found there which had been used for years as an ancient healing site. People listened and he built a log hotel there and Florida's first tourist destination was in business. A log spring house was also built around the spring and remained until 1903 when Minnie Mosher Jackson built the concrete and coquina walls which contained a four story interior that had treatment rooms and a concession area as well as an elevator. Other buildings are also visible which were probably guest accommodations. You can see the water flowing out of the building into the river but the true beauty of this establishment is not evident.

The second postcard is an interior view and now the magic of the building becomes evident. You can see all four layers with the swimming pool on the bottom and the open air fourth floor which is visible in the postcard above. This interior postcard with a Victorian atmosphere appears to be a 1920s era view. This post card can be found along with 10,000 more post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.

State Monuments at Andersonville Georgia

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Andersonville Georgia is infamous as a Civil War Union POW camp, Camp Sumter. This prison was one of the largest established by the Confederacy during the Civil War and during the 14 months it was in use, over 45,000 Union soldiers were held here. Almost 13,000 of the prisoners died from disease, lack of sanitation, malnutrition, overcrowding and exposure to the elements. Although the prison only covered 26 1/2 acres, the peak number of prisoners hit 32,000 in August of 1864. After the war ended, many Northern states erected monuments here to honor their native sons lost and buried here.

Today the area is the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum and serves as a memorial to all American prisoners of war. Not only is the Cemetery a final resting place for those who died here but it is one of only two National Cemeteries that are classified as active and continue to bury veterans and their dependents.

Today's 1940s Curt Teich linen postcard shows five of the State Monuments at Andersonville and includes Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin. This post card can be found in my Georgia listings along with 10,000 additional post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Amarillo Texas Hospitals 1939

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Hospitals are a vital need of every town and city if they are to survive and prosper. You need only to look at the small rural towns who are fighting valiantly to keep their hospitals so they can keep and save their residents. One of the more common views on postcards are hospitals and today's post card is a great example of a town touting their hospitals. This is a 1939 Curteich linen postcard featuring three hospitals in Amarillo Texas and billing the city as the "New Southwestern Hospital Center" with the Northwest Texas Hospital, St. Anthony Hospital and the Veterans' Hospital. This postcard can be found in my Texas listings along with 10,000 additional postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Adair County Court House Kirksville Missouri 1907

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It is back to Kirksville Missouri today with a circa 1907 view of the Adair County Court House. The nice thing about this post card is you can see and identify some of the stores on the square. To the left of the court house is J. F. Eckert, Tailoring & Hats, J. I. Fowler and to the right is a partial name ending in "garges" and ??? & Reed Drugs store. The postcard is postmarked 1907 from Kirksville and the back shows "Normal Book Store, Importers and Publishers, Kirksville Mo.". It is not unusual for the local publisher or photographer to have their business in the picture but that was not the case this time. This post card is available in my Missouri listings along with 10,000 additional post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.

American School of Osteopathy 1905

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The postcard for today is a circa 1905 view of The American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville Missouri. The school was founded in 1892 by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still. This was the first institution of osteopathic education and continues today as A. T. Still University. Dr. Still developed the system of therapy based on the concept that the body can develop its own cures for diseases when the body is in a normal structural relationship, has a normal environment and has good nutrition. Osteopathy takes a "holistic" approach to medical care but also embraces modern medical knowledge when needed. This postcard is available in my Missouri listings along with 10,000 additional post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Pine Bluffs Wyoming Railroad Depot

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Today's postcard is a great view of the Union Pacific Railroad Depot and yards with a passenger train in the station in Pine Bluffs Wyoming and this postcard was mailed from there in January of 1918. Pine Bluffs was established in 1868 and was originally called Rock Ranch but Union Pacific changed the name to Pine Bluffs for the nearby bluffs. The population there was 246 in 1910, 771 in 1940 and 1,153 in 2000. Pine Bluffs is located on Interstate 80 close to the Wyoming Nebraska border and near Cheyenne Wyoming. This post card can be found in my Wyoming listings along with 10,000 additional postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

1950s Real Photos of Your Hometown

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Today's postcards are great sellers because they bring back those memories of what it was like when we were growing up if you are over 50. These real photos of downtown back in the 1940s and 1950s bring back our childhood in vivid detail including the corner drugstore, old cars, cafes and gas stations when they were still "service" stations and sold gas for 29 cents a gallon. The first real photo post card is a circa 1950 view of downtown Albany Texas with lots of great cars, a cafe, hotel and a Conoco gas station.

The second real photo postcard is a 1950s view of downtown Bracketville Texas showing the Nipper Drug Store with fountain service and the Palace movie theater. This type of real photo postcard was made on many of the large and small towns so keep your eyes open. Both of these post cards can be found in my Texas listings along with 10,000 additional post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Cody Wyoming Bridge 1907

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Today's postcard is what I call a "busy" postcard because there is a lot going on in this one image simply labeled "Cody Bridge". At first glance it seems pretty straight forward but a close examination reveals a significant amount of activity. At the very bottom are three freight wagons without horses and a hitching post with a least 3 horses tied up. Also near the bottom on the road is a freight wagon pulled by four horses which appears to have another wagon attached behind it. To the right in the trees is another wagon and a single horse tied to a tree. In the road before the bridge, there is a person on a horse talking to two people standing in the road and there are at least three horseback riders on the bridge. Across the Shoshone river, there is a building on the left but the main road turns right, then left and then back to the right going up the hillside and there are two wagons starting up the hill. At the top, there are at least 6 buildings visible which I assume are part of the town of Cody. My reason for pointing out all of this detail is to encourage you to use a magnifying glass of 5 to 10 power to examine your postcards and try to figure out what is there and what is going on. That is part of the fun of postcards. You can find this postcard in my Wyoming listings along with 10,000 more postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Callahan County Bastille in Baird Texas 1915

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Baird Texas was established in 1880 when the Texas & Pacific Railway came through and established a division point on the railroad with a depot,roundhouse and repair shops and replaced Belle Plain as the county seat in 1883. The post office, established in 1881 as Vickery, was renamed Baird in 1883 and the town was incorporated in 1889. The population was 1,502 in 1904 and peaked at 3,000 in 1920, declined to 1,810 in 1941 and has remained fairly steady since then with the 2000 census showing 1,623. I should mention that I was born and raised just 40 miles south of here in Coleman Texas and I am proud to say I have never been in the subject of today's postcard, the Callahan County Bastille in Baird Texas. This is a circa 1915 view of the jail and has two men and two women standing on the front porch. You can find this post card in my Texas listings along with 10,000 additional postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Churches in Tacoma Washington 1908

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Today's postcards are a follow on to the last posting on Tacoma Washington landmarks. The first post card is a great view of St. Patrick's Church and is shown on circa 1908 Edward H. Mitchell postcard #664.

The second post card shows St. Luke's Church and is shown on circa 1908 Edward H. Mitchell postcard #517. Both of these views can be found in my Washington listings along with 10,000 additional postcards on my website Moody's Postcards.

Tacoma Washington Court House & Seminary

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Today I want to share a couple of early Tacoma Washington post cards with you. The first is a View of the Annie Wright Seminary in Tacoma which was founded by C.C. Wright in 1884 when he and other Tacoma residents wanted a school where their daughters could receive a good education and the school was named after his daughter, Annie. The school is still in operation today and has a co-ed day program through grade 8 and an all girls day and boarding school in grades 9-12. This is a circa 1908 Edward H. Mitchell postcard.

The second view is also a circa 1908 Edward H. Mitchell postcard and shows the Pierce County Court House in Tacoma Washington. Both of the postcards can be found in my Washington listings on my website Moody's Postcards.

Old Hotel Wilhelmina in Arkansas

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Postcards are just like newspapers and blogs; you can not always believe what they say. Today's post card is an excellent example. When I originally listed this postcard on my website, I did not verify the location cited on the front of the card and being a transplanted Texan in Georgia, I had no clue that the information was wrong. As is often the case, a customer from Mena Arkansas was nice enough to email me and set me straight.

I did some research and found the old Wilhelmina Inn was actually on Rich Mountain in what is now Queen Wilhelmina State Park near Mena Arkansas. Built at a cost of $100,000 by the Kansas City, Pittsburgh & Gulf Railroad on their route from Kansas City Missouri to Port Arthur Texas, the Victorian inn had the grand opening on 22 June 1898 and was named in honor of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands who was crowned in September 1898 although she never stayed there. In less than three years after opening, the railroad went broke and sold the inn to what is now the Kansas City Southern Railroad who failed to maintain it and let it languish until it closed in 1910.

The depression and World War II prevented any help until 1957 when the state created a new state park on the site and replaced the inn with a new lodge which opened on 22 June 1963, 65 years to the day after the original opening. The new lodge was not as grand as the first and also had a short life when a kitchen fire destroyed it ten years later in November 1973.

Arkansas State Parks quickly built a new $3 million dollar lodge on the original site in 1975 which is the feature attraction of the state park today. This postcard is of the original structure and is a 1913 Curt Teich or Curteich postcard and is available in my Missouri listings along with 10,000 additional post cards on my website Moody's' Postcards.

Monroe & Lafayette Louisiana High Schools

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I have several postcards of my High School; do you have a postcard of yours? High School postcards are very popular as this is the source of many of our memories of our home town. Today I want to share views of two Louisiana High Schools beginning with one from Monroe Louisiana. This is an unused 1920s E. C. Kropp postcard of the City High School.

The second post card shows the Senior High School in Lafayette Louisiana and this is a 1935 Curt Teich or Curteich postcard. Both of these postcards can be found in my Louisiana listings on my website Moody's Postcards.