Archive for November 2013
Log Truck Accident …
This is an image that is in bad shape and I did not feel like taking the time to work it up, so I just through a texture screen on it and ran it though several filters to give it this look. The sign of the Gulfarium is what really stands out in this image. I would estimate the date to be early 1950’s and I do not know where the location of the accident is. Below is the same image without some of the filters, but with the texture screen to clean up a lot of the negative damage. I like the color over-lay, toned images have always been a favorite of mine. Here is the “straight” image …
Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Beauty Contest at the Casino on Pensacola Beach …
The negative bag read something like ” JC Beauty Contest at the Casino ” and the date was 1950’s. The “JC” was the Junior Chamber, I believe. I do not know who the girls are or the guy giving the trophy, but he sure is interested in this young lady. Here is one more of the two …
I hope that his wife was not in the audience. The band was ” The Clarence Schenk Orchestra “. Here are the runners up …
I do not have any names for the young ladies, but the last one looks vaguely familiar to me. The last photo is of the three winners …
These are three cute girls or should I say ” ladies ” …. I do not want to come across as sexist or anything in this political correct society that we live in today. I wish that I had some photos of the outside of the Casino, but I have yet to run across any. If anyone happened to be at this beauty contest, let’s hear from you. I am curious who these beauty queens are. Thanks for looking and please check back …. Frank
Cordova Park 1959 …
Here are some more panorama prints that I have stumbled across recently. I believe this is the house that was next to our house at 3715 Dunwoody Drive. If you look real close, you will see a boy standing on the back porch … that was me. I was 5 at the time this photo was taken. Our house was built next door to the left of this house. Dunwoody at this point was still a dirt road. The next photo shows Gerhardt Drive, one block to the north of this photo … it was paved. Here is a photo showing Mr. Lautner in front of a home he had built on Gerhardt …
Mr. Lautner was the man who built my parent’s house on Dunwoody. Gerhardt is one block off of Bayou Blvd and was paved at this time … for some reason, I do not believed that Bayou Blvd was paved at the time this photo was taken. You turned into Cordova Park off of 12th Avenue back in these days. 12th Avenue was paved and took you to the airport. There was no Airport Blvd or PSC Blvd in 1959, so 12th Avenue became a dead-end at the National Guard Amory. You turned right and you were in the airport parking lot. Well, that is your Pensacola history lesson for the day … no quiz on this stuff, so don’t worry. If anyone ever runs across any old photos of Cordova Park or of the Pensacola Airport from back in the late 1950’s or 1960’s, please let me know because I would love to see them. Even old snapshots that someone in your family made … they do not have in great shape, just clear mostly. Let me hear from you and thanks again for looking … Frank
Pensacola Women’s Club Fashions …
I do not know who these ladies are or the year that these were taken, but it would have to be sometime in the 1950’s. This was taken before they started selling rolls of seamless white paper in 108″ length. My father just took a roll of linoleum and painted the back of it white. I have posted posted other photos before he had this backdrop where he just used the rear wall of his camera room. Notice that this linoleum was not very log and the women could not stand far enough away from the wall to have their shadows fall off. They were standing about a foot from the end and were maybe only 3 feet or so from the back wall. His camera room in this studio was not very deep or large, so he could not have brought them out much further anyway. Here is another photo of the two ladies …
I could have dodged out the background shadow, but for what this is, I did not bother with it. Thanks for looking and if you have any comments, please share them with us. Thanks for looking … Frank
Wreck on Highway 90 Leaving Milton Florida …
For those of you that travel Highway 90 or live in the Milton area are familiar with the bridge across Pond Creek. Well, I have found some negatives from a wreck that occurred at that bridge back in the 1950’s between a Greyhound Bus and a pick-up truck. I do not have any details about the wreck, but I just want to show you what the bridge looked like and you will also see the area surrounding the bridge. Sixty something years ago, this bridge was wooden and there was nothing but dirt and scrub oaks around. You were still several miles from downtown Milton, which only took up two city blocks before you came to Blackwater River and once you crossed the river, you went back to dirt and scrub oaks … and maybe a few pine trees here and there. OK, enough talk, here are some photos …
These views you are looking east toward the bridge and Milton. The first you were maybe 200 feet from the bridge and the second shot you were maybe only 50 feet from the bridge.
All of these photos you have been looking east. Since this is an MP directing traffic, my guess that the vehicle that ran into the bus might have contained military personnel. Whiting Field is no where near this bridge, so the MP would have no reason to be in the area unless he was just driving by and wanted to help. In the middle photo you see where they are connecting the tow truck to bus and if you look real close in the first photo, you see the tow truck on it’s back two wheels with it’s front wheels completely suspended three or four feet off of the ground. They must not have had these huge commercial tow trucks that you see towing 18 wheelers down the interstate back in the 1950’s. Another photo …
This photo is from the middle of the bridge looking west. You can the wooden timbers that run across the bridge pretty good in the top photo. I would imagine that an insurance adjuster representing the Greyhound Bus Company hired my father, but I have no way of knowing. But as I usually say, that is not my purpose here … my sole purpose is just to show things / times as they were. My thoughts were … can you imagine taking a trip in an un-air conditioned Greyhound Bus across the United States on two-lane county roads with no interstate? The interstate system was still 7 or 8 years from starting and at least 15 to 18 years from finishing ! I do not think that they started the Interstate until the early sixties and did not completely finish until the mid to late seventies. Thanks again for looking and I am sure that there are a few of you that remember this old wooden bridge across Pond Creek … let us hear from you … Frank
12th Avenue Aerial Photograph 1940’s …
I posted this aerial photograph a long time ago, but I thought that I would post it again since I have posted several photos of the old Sacred Heart Nursing School building recently. Notice that the stores across from the old Sacred Heart Hospital have not been built yet. It just looks like a parking lot at the present time … I posted a photo that my father had made showing it with automobiles and the hospital in the background. It is many posts back, but I am pretty sure that I have posted the photograph. I am not really sure when this aerial was made, but I would say sometime in the late 1940’s … I do not know when the stores were built across from the old Sacred Heart Hospital, early 1950’s if I had to make a guess. You can see the roof of the original NB Cook school on Cervantes diagonally from the Sacred Heart Nurses School if you look close. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
First Methodist in Snow …
This photo was taken back in February 1957, when it snowed so hard and there were several inches on the ground for a day or so. Notice the snow on the roof of the church. I found this photo years ago and I started to remove the telephone pole and parking meters out front, but it was just too much trouble to do. Let me rephrase that statement … I was spending too many hours on removing the objects and I still had a lot of hours to go before I had every item taken out. This is going to be a job that I have to pay someone to do for me if I want it done correctly. Taking out the objects is not the hard and time consuming part, it is replacing parts of the image to make them blend in with the original setting. So I thought that I would just post it the way it is and see what type of response I get, if I get any at all. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
The Operation …
Here is another photo of an operation in progress from back in the 1940’s. It looks as if the surgeon has on some type of gloves, but neither he or the nurse has on any type of mask. Obviously this was not some type of major surgery or I doubt that my father would have been allowed in with his camera, but back in the day you never know. I do not have any idea who the doctor was or the nurse either. If anyone knows, please let us know … thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Pensacola High School Football Team in the 1950’s …
I found three negatives of this team in different variations years ago and finally sat down and worked one up. The other two are in very bad shape and has sections missing and are in terrible shape. This was the easiest to clean-up and make presentable. I would have to guess that this team was in the 1950’s sometime. Notice how each manager is wearing a white jump-suit with a number on one side and the abbreviation for “Manager” on the other side. No clue what the numbering means or meant. Maybe someone will know and be able to tell us. I know that the author, Rick Fountain, who wrote an excellent book recently on the history of the Pensacola High School Football team reads this blog occasionally and he might be able to shed a little light on this group photo of the team. Thanks for looking and if you know any information on this group, please share it with us. Thanks again for looking … Frank
Building the School of Nursing …
This is a photo of the foundation when they were constructing the Sacred Heart School of Nursing in around 1945 or 46. You cannot tell by looking at the building in the previous post, but the building is built in the shape ” W ” . This just show the two outer sides … there was another section in the center that housed a small auditorium, or at least it was back then and when it was a school. You can sort of see where there are extending the center part of the foundation in the photo above. If anyone remembers the building being built and has any comments along that line, please let us hear from you. Even if you don’t remember the building being built, but attended nursing school in this building, please let us hear from you, also. Well, even if you attended the Academy of Arts and Sciences in this building, we would like to hear from you, too. I ran across some old negatives from my high school days, and if any of the old alumni would like to see some old Academy photos, let me know and I will clean them up and post them. Thanks for looking … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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