Northern California coast, 1956 — Up in the extreme northwest corner of California, you’ll find Crescent City, county seat of Del Norte County, home of the popular roadside attraction Trees of Mystery. Known to travelers of Highway 101 as the home of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, Trees of Mystery first opened in 1931. As I wrote in […]
This week, I’ve got a road trip for you, up the coast of California and into the beautiful Redwoods. These slides are all from 1956, and we start off in Santa Cruz, about 75 miles south of San Francisco. I’ve never been to Santa Cruz, and I’m sure the city has changed a lot over the years — but after […]
San Francisco — In 1956, the Golden Gate Bridge had been in operation for just under 20 years. The historic Sutro Baths building was still standing, although the baths had been replaced by an ice skating rink in 1937. You could spend the day at Playland-at-the-Beach, just across the street from Golden Gate Park; Playland shut down in 1972, and […]
My next batch of slides date from 1956 and start with a trip to San Francisco. I originally shared these images back in January 2017 (see Memory Monday, Week 8). In that previous post I wrote about the long history of the Red and White Fleet; even today their boats cruise San Francisco Bay, setting out from Fisherman’s Wharf and […]
This week, I’m returning to the year 1951, when my parents were in San Antonio, Texas, and visited what was then known as the Brackenridge Zoo. I shared most of these animal pictures back in late November 2016 (scroll to the bottom of the page), and I figured I should close out that collection of images before I move on […]
As I go through my collection of family slides (again), I can’t help but wonder how each image wound up where it sits in the various slide carousels. Why do some of them have handwritten notes while most have nothing to hint at when and where they were shot? And why are they so wildly out of order? I’ll probably […]
I must have walked past this old backstop dozens of times without even noticing. It sits in a back corner behind the local elementary school, looking like a forgotten relic of another age. On this day, I was coming back from my morning hike, feeling rather tired and discouraged. Suddenly, there it was: broken, rusted, tilted askew, its small wheels […]
This week I’m concluding my slide carousel labeled 1951 — although in fact the last couple of slides have the year 1950 written on them, and the first three might actually be from 1956. Ah, well! I originally posted these images in late 2016; they include scenes from a snow trip up Highway 50 (east of Sacramento) as well as […]
Images from Echo Summit and Lake Tahoe in 1951.