Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
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
Fun on Pensacola Beach in the 1940’s …
No, this was not staged recently to make it look like it was made back in the forties …it was actually made sometime in the late 1940’s, I am not sure of the year. Maybe some of could tell from the bathing suits that the girls are wearing. The men’s suites look like they could have been bought with in the last few years. I would guess that this shot was taken at Casino Beach looking at the buildings in the background. I have one more beach photo …
The above image was toned and I did not bother trying to make it match the previous group image. As usual, I have no clue who any of the people in the photos are. The only sure thing that I know is that they were made on Pensacola Beach. The thing that really catches my eye is how wide the beach is in these photos … it looks as if it could be several blocks from the water to where the buildings start. Now when you go to Pensacola Beach, in some areas it doesn’t seem to be a hundred feet from the road to the Gulf. I bet there was not any beach re-nourishment program going on back then, in fact, I would wager that if you had told someone back in the 1940’s if you were going to spend millions of dollars to build the beach up … they would have said that it would only wash away in a year or so, if that long. Better not let any of the ” brains ” on the Santa Rosa Island Authority Board hear about that! Next thing you know they will be subsidizing concerts on Pensacola Beach with tax-payers money!!! Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
City of Baton Rouge …
The name on this ferry says ” City of Baton Rouge ” and all of the vehicles look to be from the 1940’s. This must have been from one of my father’s trips out West to see his sister. I would guess that this is the Mississippi River just by the name of the car ferry. I have no other information than what I have written and as usual, it could be all wrong. Maybe someone viewing this blog might have some comment about this ferry’s location, etc, etc. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Muscogee Florida … Update – 22 July 14 …
These photos were taken in Muscogee Florida in the early 1900’s and I do not know who made them. My father was born in 1915 in Muscogee and lived there until 1925, when he, his mother, brother and sister moved to Pensacola since the mill – Southern States Lumber Company – closed down. I do not know who made these photographs or where my father got them from. If anyone has any information to add to any of these photos, please leave a comment. Also, if anyone has any information on Southern States Lumber Company or any other photographs, I am interested. Below is a photo of the mill and the other is just a view of the Perdido River back around 1900 to 1910 …
The photo of the Perdido Riv er is not much of a photo, but I think it shows how remote and isolated it was back in the early 1900’s in Muscogee. Just a stone’s throw from where the mill was located is the International Paper plant today and the rest of Cantonement. Next is a photo of my father and his first grade class …
The school in Muscogee was run by the lumber company for children of the mill’s employees and others that worked in businesses that had something to do with the mill. When the mill closed down in 1925, so did Muscogee and that is when my father and his family moved to Pensacola. Here are several photos of homes in the area …
For some reason I want to say that this was the front of the boarding house that my grandmother ran in Muscogee for the mill. When my father’s father died in 1918, the mill let my grandmother to continue to run the mill until 1925, when the town pretty much closed down. Here are a couple more photos …
Maybe this was a view of the boarding house, since I think I remember my father saying the it was two story. So, I am not sure what the first building is a photo of because it does not look like a two story building. UPDATE: Yesterday, I went downtown to the Pensacola Historical Society and they have moved back into their refurnished office space in the Beacon Building in back of the Wentworth Museum. They let me do some research on the Southern States Lumber Company and I saw an article that contained the front of the above building and it is the main office of the lumber company. I was incorrect in thinking that it was the boarding house that my grandmother ran for the company. The next photo is one that I believe was the post office in Muscogee …
There is a site that I found on Muscogee and here is a link to the site. It has some interesting stories about Muscogee and it is about the only information that I have found on Muscogee on the web, other than just mentioning Muscogee by name. The Pensacola Historical Society has some file on the mills and they are happy to direct you to it when you go downtown to their office in the Bowden Building. Thirty years or so I remember a couple coming by the studio and talking to my father about a paper they were writing on Muscogee for a History class they were taking out at UWF. I wish I could remember who they were, since most of the people who ever lived in Muscogee are deceased and not much has ever been written about the town. If anyone knows anything about Muscogee, again, please let me hear from you or has any photos from the mill, I would like to see them. Thanks for looking and I hope you check back … Frank
Harry James In Pensacola …
The tall guy with the black jacket is Harry James, famous trumpet player and band leader. What he was doing in Pensacola, as well as who the other people in the photo are, is a mystery to me. In fact, the only thing that I knew about Harry James was that he was the first big-band leader to hire Frank Sinatra back in 1939. Here is a link to his Wikipedia site. I also saw that he was married to Betty Gable at one time in his life … that I am impressed with. Betty Gable, I believe, had the number 1 pin-up / photo for the guys in WW II. If anyone recognizes any of the other people in the photo, please let us know. Also, if he was in Pensacola to play a concert or whatever, let us know. Thanks for looking … Frank
Bryce Canyon, Not The Grand Canyon …
This is from a transparency that my father had made back in the 1950’s on one of his trips out west to visit his sister. I made the mistake earlier of identifying the above image as the Grand Canyon and bubbasuess wrote and said that this is Bryce Canyon in Utah. That makes sense because I knew that my father had been to Bryce Canyon on one of his trips out West, since he had talked about it occasionally. I like the color in this transparency … nothing was done to change or alter the color, all I did was take out the dirt marks. Thanks for looking and again thanks for identifying the correct canyon … they all sort of look the same to me after a while. Please check back … Frank
Talking On The Phone …
I do not know anything about this photo ( as usual ), but I just thought that it and the one below where cute photographs. You can just barely see the black phone on the table to the girl’s left. I would say that these images were made in the early 1950’s. They could have been taken for Southern Bell, since my father used to take a lot of photos for them. You can tell that big sister is trying to ignore her little brothers … her being a teenager and everything. Here is the other photograph …
Those little guys just are not going to leave her alone. You can see the phone better in this photo. How many of you out there can remember seeing a phone like this? I believe that this style of phone was around for twenty or thirty years before Bell Telephone got around to redesigning it and adding color to the units. I have a photo somewhere showing the new style phone and colors somewhere that I will find to post. I am really surprised how long it took the phone company to come up with different styles of phones to offer the buying public … I guess that the public had other things in life to worry about and not the type or color of what phone they had in their house. Not today! You cannot even watch the Oscars without getting bombarded by the new Samsung cell phone. Times have definitely changed! Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Doc and Kitty in Front of The Town House Motor Lodge …
This is “Doc” and “Kitty” from the tv show Gunsmoke. They were in town back in the middle 1950’s for the Fiesta. I have posted some other photos of them in earlier posts, but I never could find this image until recently. It was in terrible shape and I had already cleaned it up once before, but I never could find it. So when I ran across this image, I went ahead and cleaned it up … again. This is the only photograph that I can find of the exterior front of the Town House Motor Lodge. The two men in the photo are Lynn Toney on the far right and the man helping Amanda Blake is the owner of the Town House and his last name was Head, but I do not know his first name. The front of the Town House was on Cervantes … you should could not do something like this now on Cervates without risking getting hit or run-over. If anyone had any contact with “Doc” or “Kitty” when they were in town, please share your story with us … I would be interested in hearing them. I have a photo of the two of them holding me up that I will post for a laugh … I cannot remember off the top of my head if I already have, so I will check. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Update (1/7/14) : Some people say that the man helping Amanda Blake out of the wagon is John R Jones, who at one time was a local politician … I want to say Property Appraiser, but I could be wrong there. I had said that the man was Mr. Head, who owned the Town House Motel with his wife. Personally, I do not care who it is, that is not the reason why I posted the photo. Please remember, this is a blog for photography, not for identifying correctly the individuals shown in the images. If we do, fine, if we do not, fine. Thanks for looking … Frank
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
The Garden of The Gods …
This photo was taken sometime in the late 1950’s. We made a trip out to Colorado and went to Pike’s Peak while we were out there. The Garden of the Gods is in Colorado Springs, which I guess is near by. I have another photo that he made that has some 50’s automobiles that I will post later. Thanks for looking … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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