Road Trip!

I hate driving in cities, but I love road trips, and this picture looks to have been from a great one.  I put my best magnifying glass on the cars license plate and it's from Pennsylvania in 1928.  And where did she go; Watkins Glen in New York, on Seneca lake in the finger lakes district.  Au Sable, New York on the Au Sable River, near Lake Champlain.  And on Lake Champlain, Rouses Point, a mile south of the Canadian border and during prohibition a great place to meet alcohol smugglers from Canada.  And of course, everyone should know about Montreal and Toronto.  I imagine this lady and her travelling companion(s) circled Lake Ontario, returning through Niagara Falls.  So, Watkins Glen State Park, the Adirondacks, beautiful lakes, smuggled Canadian whiskey,  French speakers, and shredded wheat.  (Shredded wheat is made in Niagara Falls, New York.)  And with no four lane highways, and probably more than a few miles on dirt routes, it must have taken at least a month.  Now that's a trip.

I Like Trains

I love rail travel. I love trains, streetcars, and subways. I love steam, diesel and electric. I hope the state of California builds the high speed route between Los Angeles and San Francisco. This photo is by train enthusiast Elwin K. Heath. Written on the back, "Canadian National 6019, Class U-1b 4-82, Montreal 1933." For a brief mention of Heath and lots of other great train photographs go to www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/cnr3367.htm

Niagara Falls

Slowly we turn. Step by step. Inch by inch. Just a quick one for fans of The Three Stooges. Niagara Falls became the go to place for honeymooners in the second half of the 19th century. A nascent middle class with disposable income, easy rail connections from eastern cities, cheap hotels, and a tourist industry was born. Niagara Falls was also the home of Shredded Wheat, a much dreaded breakfast from my childhood. I thought I'd just mention that since I've put up a Shredded Wheat advertising card on my other blog, www.fairuse-wjy.blogspot.com

Opening Day

As I've noted before, I've had a life long tendency to collect things. My first really systematic collections were baseball cards and comic books. Sadly, my mother listened to the child psychologists of the day who believed that a refusal to give up childhood interests was a sign of an arrested development. So every Topps baseball card from 1959 through 1970, organized by team and league went into the fire. Also, my Spiderman, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Avengers numbers 1. Just think, I could have paid all my debts and taken the next couple of years off if I still had them. And no, I'm not going back to baseball card collecting. Not enough space, time or money. This is the only one I own.

Emma Alexander

No, I don't know the name of the woman in these snapshots. When I found this small group of photos of the same lady over the years, I was most interested in the image of her in the blue jeans and bikini top, and the earliest of the collection, the photo of her leaning on a ship's rail. The ship picture is labeled "S.S. Emma Alexander" and that gave me a starting point to do some research. The S.S. Emma Alexander was built by the New York Ship Building Corporation for The Pacific Coast Steamship Company. The ship's keel was laid down on August 31, 1912 and was launched on May 17, 1913. Originally named the Congress, the ship was damaged in a fire off the Oregon coast in 1916, and then repaired and sold in 1918 to the China Mail Company for use on the San Francisco to Hong Kong route. The Congress was renamed The Nanking. In 1923, the ship was sold to The Admiral Line, renamed the Emma Alexander, and 1n 1924, was returned to service on the Pacific coast routes from San Diego, California, to the bay area, to Victoria, British Columbia, Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The ship went out of service in 1936, and in 1941 was sold to the British Ministry of War Transport Service, survived World war 2, only to be scuttled in the mid-Atlantic in 1946 with a load of gas bombs in her hold. So, we can date the first photo from no earlier than 1924, and no later than 1936. Based on the clothing, closer to 1924. Researching old photos can lead into some interesting directions. When I entered S.S. Emma Alexander into the search engine, all I was hoping for was a date range on the photo, but I also found some history on the coastal liners. The Admiral Line employed white crews, but like the Pullman Railroad Car Company, they employed black stewards. Go to www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/thomasfleming.htm for an article about Thomas Fleming, the future founder of the San Francisco Sun-Reporter, an important black newspaper, who, as an 18 year old, fresh out of Chico High School, was a steward on the Emma Alexander. It's possible that Mr. Flemming served breakfast to this lady. The only other photo with any written information is the photo of her standing in front of the large house, labeled "Monterey, Calif." The date range on these photos look to be from the mid-twenties to the late forties, early fifties.