Archive for the ‘1950’s’ Category
Community Chest … Part Two …
Here are a few more photos from the Community Chest. I do not know any of the people in front of the tally board … maybe someone will recognize an individual and comment. Some more photos …
If anyone remembers anyone on the boards or in the photos and wants to make a comment, please feel free. Thanks again for looking. This year is just about up and it really has flown by. No idea what 2016 has in store, but I am looking forward to whatever it brings. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope you have a safe New Year. Thanks again for stopping by and looking … the comments are also welcomed. Stay safe … Frank
Town and Country Plaza …
This is a view of Town and Country Plaza being built back in the early 1960’s. The camera was a Wide-Lux Panoramic camera that used 120 roll film. I do not know who the developers of this project were, but I doubt that this was a local group. The road in the foreground was called ” Pottery Plant Road ” and was eventually changed to Fairfield Drive since the Pensacola Interstate Fair used to be located on this road before it was relocated to Mobile Highway. Here is one more view …
Back when this shopping center was built, no one could envision a shopping mall that would be enclosed and air conditioned. In fact, I am sure a lot of people at this time would ask ” what is air conditioning ? ” . If anyone wants to share there shopping experiences here at Town and Country Plaza, please feel free. Thanks for looking and please check back. And Happy Holidays to everyone …
Liberace and Friend … Updated ……
I posted this photo years ago and I did not know who the lady is. Someone had mentioned a name for her when I posted this on the first blog that I had on Blogger six or seven years ago. But I cannot what they said her name was and when I “googled” it nothing came up. So I did not pay that much attention to it. Recently, I have been reading a book by author Steve Fischer entitled ” When The Mob Ran Vegas “. On page 113, there is a photo of Ruth Gillis and it said that she was one of Liberace’s show girls when he played the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. I am not going to bother trying to get permission to see if I can post it here, you are just going to have to take my word for it. On the web there are several photos of her with various other entertainers, one being Ernie Kovacs and here is a link to the photo. I have tried ( not very heard though ) to find some other photos and information on Ms Gillis, but have not turned up much. I do not know a date for the above photo and if I had to guess I would say that it would be 1955 or 1956. In the book it says that she started as a show girl with Liberace on April 20, 1955 at the Riviera. I was hoping that someone might have remembered seeing Liberace in Pensacola when he came here, but I have not received any comments from anyone. I might have to go down to the PNJ and see what it takes to go through there microfilm files. If anyone has any thing to share, please let us hear from you. Thanks again for looking and please check back … Frank
The Community Chest … Part One …..
Several weeks ago the Pensacola News Journal printed an article by John Appleyard about the Community Chest. The Community Chest later turned into the United Way. It was an interesting article by Mr. Appleyard, as they all are. I ran across these images years ago and set them aside … the only thing that interested me were all of the photos of the local ” movers and shakers “, since my father had taken the photos. A lot of the names are very familiar to me and a few mean nothing to me, but that really does not mean anything since these images are sixty years old. I was only two when these were taken. There are a few images, so I am going to break these up into two posts. Since I do not know anything much about the images, I am just going to post the images and leave out any comments to the end. Here we go …
None of the people standing in front of the tally boards are familiar to me … I recognize a lot of the names / faces of the the people on the boards. I am sure some of you out there will be able to identify these of these people. I also apologize for not being able to figure out how to put a link to Mr. Appleyard’s article in the Pensacola News Journal. In fact, I am not sure if I would be allowed to since so many publications do not allow bloggers to link to their sites because of plagiarism laws. Maybe someone out there will let me know how to link and if I am even allowed to. Thanks again for looking and feel free to comment. I will post the other images in a week or so … Frank
Bret Harte’s Cabin …
My father made this photo on one of his trips out west to visit his sister in the 1940’s and 50’s. I Googled “Bret Harte” a while back and I think I remember it saying that he was a writer out in California. Here is a link to his Wikipedia site and I was correct about him being a writer. I have seen this old photo for fifty years and never really thought much about it, but I scanned the print and decided to post it just because I had it ready. The only significance to me is that this is my 400th post on this blog. I would guess that I have over 600 photos posted and it could be more since many posts have more than two images and a few have over ten. When I started I had only planned to put up one image per post, then I started finding more and more images that were related. In an effort to streamline my posts, I just thought that it would be easier to include all of the images that were related. My only real goal out of this blog was to just share all of these images that I came across as I sorted through the thousands that I had of my father’s. At some point in time in the future, I am going to try and put together a book of a lot of these image and see what type of response I get. But that is for another time … Thanks for looking and if anyone has been to see Bret Harte’s cabin, let us hear from you. For all I know it might have fallen down or it might have gotten burned up in all of the fires that they are having all over the state of California. And if anyone has read any of Mr. Harte’s books, let us know what you think. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Ice Machine …
I ran across this image years ago and did not pay attention to it until just the other day. I had not noticed the ” 25 cents bag ” written on the door of the unit. This had to have been taken back in the 1950’s and I do not where the machine was located. You can tell that someone must have backed into it and they are filling an insurance claim on the unit for my father to have taken a photo of the ice machine. It looks like it was located in front of a liquor store because those look like pints and half pints on the shelves on the right side of the frame. I have been busy with other things the last several months ( one being Instagram – frankphardy ) and I have not posted much the last several months, but I am going to renew it for another year in a few weeks. If anyone has any questions or comments, please let me hear them. Thanks again for looking … Frank
Out West Again …
I believe that the above image was taken somewhere in Colorado, but where I have no idea. It was taken in the late 1950’s … I cannot make out the writing on the bottom of the sign so there might be a clue written on it. The town looks remote and isolated. You see no signs for gas and this was obviously a time before convenience stores. Isn’t hard to remember a time when there were no Tom Thumbs or Seven-Elevens or Quik Marts? The kids today sure cannot! This little town does not look to even have a strip mall … now that is hard to believe!! I believe that the idea for strip malls was hatched in Florida. I might need a fact check on my last statement, however with all of the strip malls we have in Florida and so many of them look to have been built in the early 1960’s, I am pretty sure that I am correct. Now, moving on to California …
The drive along the Pacific Ocean looks like this now – for the most part – as it did back in the 1950’s. The only difference is that the road has been repaved and maybe these turn a rounds have been surfaced … how about that old Buick. Could you imagine driving across the United States in a car that was not air conditioned? No, I did not think so. We have all gotten soft and spoiled. Ok, ok , I am not talking about everyone … I am sure that there are a handful of you out there that could, especially you motorcycle riders. I can remember on some of these trips out west when we would wait until the sun went down to drive across the desert for fear of the car over-heating. I used to sit in the back with the window down staring out at the stars for hours. Then I would spot a little disk with a lighted dome on top flying across the sky and think that Eastern has sure come up with weird new planes… Thanks for looking and if you have any comments or questions, I want to hear them.
Out West With The Hardy Family …
I have posted some of these type images earlier, so when I ran across this one I thought that I would throw it up. The next image is one with my mother, me and a friend who’s family traveled out to Denver with us. I am the littlest ” paleface ” in the photo. I wish that I could say that I remember this event in my life and have something to share with you, but I was too young. Here we are …
I am not really sure where these were taken, but I would guess New Mexico. Thanks for looking and I have been busy with other things this month and have neglected my blogs. But I have been working on posts for this blog and my photography blog, so do not dessert me. Thanks for looking and please check back. If anyone has a clue where these photos were taken, please let us hear from you …
Twelfth Avenue Fire …
On Sunday August 17, 1975, a fire destroyed this entire block. It was a Sunday morning around 11:00 when it started in the freezer of Exotic Florist. There was an electrical short in the wiring of the freezer that held Exotic’s flowers. This building was built sometime in the early 1950’s and the building code did not require fire walls between the offices … since there was no fire wall, all of the units shared a common attic. Once the fire got into the attic, it was just a short time until all of the businesses where consumed in fire. My father happened to be there at the time and was able to grab a few cameras and save them, but everything else in his studio was completely destroyed. The following is a photographic story of the fire, the aftermath and the rebuilding of the block. There are a lot of photos and they really need no explanation, so I won’t bother you with any …
I tried to enter the photographs in some type of sequence starting down at Exotic Florist and then moving north up 12th Avenue through the rest of the businesses. The entire fire from start to finish only took an hour or so. The firemen did an excellent job in getting the fire out and luckily they were able to save the Winn-Dixie grocery store. Now the next photograph is the clean-up several days later …
There was an alley between the grocery store and the building that burned, so I am sure that was the reason that Winn-Dixie did not burn. But it did have smoke and some water damage. The above photo was taken the following week and I am not sure of the date. The Moulton’s owned the property and cleaned up the damage within a week or so. Now, the next images are of the new building that was built within six months of the fire …
The aerial photograph is one that I made years later, but I thought that it added something to the rest of the images. The only businesses that went back in were Dr. Hoyt, Fischler Framing and my father. This new building was completed by February 1976. He had moved across the street to a vacant building on Gonzalez Street and this is where he had started his business in 1948. There are several other photos that I might throw up later, but this is the majority of the images that I have collected / found through the years. The Pensacola News Journal did an article on my father and the fire, but I do not know if I am allowed to publish the photos and the write-up, with copyright laws and such. Speaking of which, there is a local hospital that has been using my photos in their centennial advertisements without my permission or compensation, but that is a whole other story. Thanks for looking and please check back. Also, if anyone remembers the fire and happened to around when the fire started, I would like to hear from you … Frank. I will leave you with one more view across the parking lot looking North.
Port of Pensacola …
Here are some more images of the Port of Pensacola from back in the 1950’s. I had posted some others a year or so back of men working in this warehouse that I thought looked fairly interesting.. There are some more but they are mostly of people at what looks to be a cocktail party or something and I do not know who any of the people are in them. Here we go …
A primary product at the Port of Pensacola during this time was fertilizer I have been told. Not really sure if it was imported or exported, but I am sure that someone out there will know and can enlighten us. One thing that I do not want to hear is how the Port has been awash in red – ink for the last fifty years … I am fairly sure that the Port was in the black for a few years back in the 1960’s. I also do not want to hear from any nay-sayers that the Port should be closed down and made into condos like that did at the foot of Palafox Street. That project has turned out great or at least it looks great. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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