20,000 Acres of Water

Countless Lake County, Tiptonville, and Reelfoot Lake postcards have been published, many of which feature the cypress trees that the area is known for. This one, postmarked 1949, includes a description on the back:

“Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, a state park of 20,000 acres of water and uncounted miles of shore line, was once the hunting ground of the Chicasaw Indians. The lake was formed by a series of earthquakes in 1811 and 1812. Known as the “Fisherman’s Paradise”, it is equally attractive for hunting, boating, and swimming. It is patronized by sportsmen and vacationists from every state of the Union.”

As was the norm with these old Curt Teich postcards, the image began as a black-and-white photo that was then “colorized”. This one got a treatment of particularly brilliant greens!

Chautauqua Comes to Cambridge

Aside from history buffs, the word Chautauqua doesn’t mean a thing to people today. But a hundred years ago it was familiar to everyone, and most had experienced them firsthand. So what is a Chautauqua? They were traveling shows that provided both entertainment and enlightenment, the stage hosting lecturers of all types, including evangelists, politicians and comedians. Chautauquas also featured musical acts, theatrical performances and even motion pictures in their formative years. Read the rest of this entry »

Fisherman’s Paradise

This postcard, which was postmarked in 1949, is a beauty! The back of the card has been stamped, Morris Camp, Reelfoot Lake, Tiptonville Tenn. It’s funny, but in all the trips our family made to Tiptonville over the years, I don’t believe we ever went fishing. It’s the fisherman’s paradise, for goodness sake! You know, my eight year old son loves to fish…maybe this could be the catalyst for a return trip to Tiptonville. Given that I haven’t seen the town in over twenty-five years, that sounds like a pretty fair idea.

Leonard’s Department Store

Whereas mom favored shopping at department stores like Striplings, Cox’s or Monnigs, my father preferred Leonard’s or “Monkey Wards”. This made those two stores frequent destinations for father-and-son Saturday outings, particularly Leonard’s. To a boy age 7 or so, there was simply no comparison between going with mom to Striplings and with dad to Leonard’s. What made Leonard’s special? For one, it had a subway that shuttled customers to and from their remote parking lot. That would be the only selling point a kid would need, but there’s more: the store was great, with a dizzying array of merchandise. Things were presented in a much more cluttered fashion than was seen elsewhere. It wasn’t that you couldn’t find what you were after, but rather that you’d find things you didn’t expect, which was undoubtedly the plan. Shopping at Leonard’s was an adventure.
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Holiday Festival of Light

I know, it’s a little late to be talking about Christmas, but I’ve just acquired this swell postcard and had to share it. The card, postmarked 1964, caught my attention because of the illuminated Santa, an image that sparked a long-dormant memory. It had been decades since I had thought of those Santas floating majestically over the downtown streets, and I was reminded of our annual pilgrimage to see the department store window displays.
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The Fort Worth Zoo

This postcard shows the sign that served as a beacon for the Fort Worth Zoo for decades. Located just off University Drive, the sign greeted southbound traffic as they crossed the Trinity River, just in time for them to take the next left on Colonial Parkway. I don’t know when the sign was first erected, but it was certainly in place prior to 1960. I’m also unclear as to when it was taken down. I want to say it was just removed only ten or fifteen years ago, but I can’t find a definitive answer. One thing I do know is that the sign was an important Fort Worth landmark, one of many that have disappeared over the past 25 years. Read the rest of this entry »

Six Flags Over Texas

I’ve already mentioned Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Texas, but there was another great amusement park we patronized, one much closer to home: Six Flags Over Texas. Six Flags was a key factor in establishing the city of Arlington the playground of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex that it is today.
Six Flags opened in 1961 and was conceived as a Disneyland-like theme park, but with a regional market instead of a national one. The late ’50s and early ’60s saw the opening of a number of similar parks, slow-paced family oriented theme parks that showed no sign of the thrill-ride emphasis that would gain favor years later.
My memories of the park are primarily from the 1960s, and until this past summer I hadn’t visited the park since “Senior Night”, 1976. As I expected, a lot had changed in 32 years. I missed the old rides, many having undergone major transformation or complete replacement. Two personal favorites, the La Salle Riverboat Ride (see postcard) and the Spee-Llunker Cave were both lazy water rides that have been replaced by the Roaring Rapids and the shamelessly commercial Yosemite Sam and the Gold River Adventure, respectively. I’ll cover The Cave and other attractions in future posts, but this time I’m going to focus on the Riverboat Ride. Read the rest of this entry »

Edgewater Beach Resort

Here it is, Edgewater Beach, where we always stayed on our vacations to Tiptonville, Tennessee, at least until the Airpark Inn opened. This postcard probably dates from the late ’50s, and shows the beach much as it was during our stays. What isn’t shown here are the cabins, which faced the beach and are off to the right in this photograph. It’s probably been 40 years since our family stayed there, which could account for the nostalgia it invokes.
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Brown High School Revisited

A few days ago I wrote of Brown High School in Cambridge, Ohio, the school my father attended in the early ’30s. That post was illustrated with a postcard of the school, a rather ordinary-looking card that I found on eBay. I hadn’t thought much more about that postcard until I came across this photo in dad’s 1931 annual. The similarities were striking, and I wondered if the photo could in fact have been used as a template for the postcard. But while the photo obviously dates from 1931 or earlier, these postcards are usually found with postmarks from the ’40s. Basing postcard art on preexisting photos was commonplace, but would they have used so old a photograph? Read the rest of this entry »

Reelfoot Airpark Inn

Among my earliest recollections of Tiptonville, Tennessee is Edgewater Beach. We always stayed at one of the cabins there when on vacation, and got in some swimming when we weren’t at my grandmother’s farm. But that all changed with the opening of the Airpark Inn, ten miles north of Tiptonville. Located at Reelfoot Lake State Park, the 20-room Inn immediately became our new place to stay during our visits. Read the rest of this entry »

The Downtown Fort Worth Movie Theaters

Once upon a time, before the development of suburban areas, the heart of any major city was “downtown”. It was the destination for both shopping and entertainment, and I’m fortunate to have been able to experience Fort Worth’s “old downtown” as a child. Seventh Street was the place to go for movies, with the Worth, Hollywood and Palace theaters all situated in close proximity to each other. I vaguely remember seeing Babes in Toyland (the 1961 Ray Bolger version) at one of the downtown theaters at the tender age of four, but the James Bond movies (Dr. No, Goldfinger) definitely made a bigger impression.
The view shown in this postcard is very similar to what I recall from when our family would go downtown, as we always approached from the west on Seventh Street. I have no idea when this photo was taken, but I’m guessing the late ’40s. This view clearly predates the addition of the neon “Reddy Kilowatt” sign at the corner of the Texas Electric building, Reddy being their cartoon mascot and spokesperson. That sign was a real landmark, one that has gone the way of much of historic downtown Fort Worth. I could be way off here, but I also seem to recall a Planter’s “Mr. Peanut” advertising sign somewhere in this vicinity as well.
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Dad’s Alma Mater: Brown High School

This vintage postcard, a surprisingly common card, shows Brown High School in Cambridge, Ohio, probably in the ’40s. Doug Stevens, my father, graduated with honors from BHS in 1934 and went on to attend Ohio University in Athens. Although I have all four of dad’s yearbooks, they reveal little historical information about the school. In fact, the only date I’ve found is the year the school opened, 1909, and that’s only because it appears on the postcard! One internet source reports the building shown here to have been demolished long ago, but when the school closed is unknown. I’ll keep searching, and post any new findings!