It’s been a little while since we did a bit of traveling around the US of yore. It’s time to attend to that pending matter. Here are a few vintage postcards, from various US locations, with some nice locales and very light traffic. In the postcard above, Deadwood in South Dakota.
Roseburg, Oregon.
Yuba City, California.
Redwood City, California.
Greenwich, Connecticut.
Port Angeles, Washington.
Vancouver, Washington.
Simply glorious pictures of a time I lived throug and don’t much miss .
Dig the two toned ’55 Chevy station wagon .
-Nate
I’m thinking it was the delivery vehicle for the Rexall across the street due to the use of the their traditional colors Orange and Blue, even though they aren’t using it on their sign. Though you can see it on the Rexall signs in a couple of the other shots. I do see some signage on the back and it seems like it says Drugs at the bottom.
Thanx ~ makes sense, I hadn’t thought of that .
I remember Rexall Drugs as being the nicer drug stores of my youth .
-Nate
The picture of Roseburg, and to a lesser extent the scene in Greenwich, take me back to my childhood in the mid-sixties when it seems like cars on the road came from three eras: the rounded cars of the early fifties, like the blue Chevy in front of the Umpqua Hotel: the finned cars of the later fifties and early sixties; and the new modern stuff like a Mustang fastback or the stacked headlight ‘65 Fords. There’s a lot of diversity of shape in a 25 year range of cars from current to late nineties, but it seems more brand-related, or CUV vs sedan, rather than such major generational changes. Thanks for posting!
A few REXALL Drug stores and ’59 Chevys! Great views!
There couldn’t have been many of those Mark III Spitfires sold with a hardtop (in the Greenwich, Conn. postcard)!
I don’t remember ever seeing a hardtop on this generation of Spitfire. My best friend at university drove one. I remember that the gas filler in the middle just behind the rear widow was a pain. Try to fill it up without getting gas on the paintwork.
Here’s a current view of the same intersection in Deadwood. The building on the right has had all the Victorian charm remuddled out of it.
There’s a brothel museum in Deadwood, in case anybody’s interested. According to their website, they last “did business” in 1980 when the place was raided . . .
Great images. The era before downtown bypasses arrived. Meaning, many main streets would be bumper to bumper traffic, as major highways passed through the middle of town.
At least the traffic created lots of commerce, and atmosphere.
Forgot, how prolific Woolworth’s was. Small towns in Canada had them as well. Same for Rexall.
Plumas & Bridge, Yuba City. Ernie’s Toyland was the BEST toy store
In “Butler PA”, it was “Alands Toyland”.
Here is the street view from 2022 https://www.google.com/maps/@48.1200428,-123.4325728,3a,75y,217.19h,86.6t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szVKSQThoZvqGY0Tywoyj-g!2e0!5s20221001T000000!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu
Quite a few changes there and I was surprised to see that the 1st National bank building had its top story chopped off, while the building across the street lost the facade and now has the upper story visible again. The Savings and Loan building seems to have been replaced and is now a bank. The big change of course is that the Pershing Hotel building has been torn down sometime between 2018 and 2022 and it seems to have remained a hotel over the years with the last signage showing The Downtown Hotel. Meanwhile the Uptown Motel has seemed to survive and was called the Quality Uptown as of 2019.
I’ve only been to Deadwood, none of the others.
That blue 1949-50 Chevy in Roseburg, OR appears to be on its last legs at age 15 or so, based on the red 1965-66 Mustang fastback on the left.
The yellow car turning into the street in the distance appears to be contemporary also, but I can’t quite tell what it is.