Postcards

Lake Cumberland in the snow

How long has it been since someone sent you a postcard other than the water bill? The little note on a colorful card from a far away placc saying the writer wished you were there and informing you they were enjoying their vacation 
   Maybe you found a cigar box of cards tucked away on a closet shelf when cleaning out the home of a deceased family member.
   The thick paper cards were an answer to a faster and cheaper way to communicate for the citizens of the 19th & 20th century. There was a distinction between cards - postcards required a two-cent stamp and postal cards used a pre-printed stamp of one-cent.
   The penny cards were printed by the United States Postal Service until Congress in 1898 passed the Private Mailing Act that permitted private publishers to manufacture cards. The private cards carried a label and had a space for a message below the illustration, with the reverse side reserved for the address and stamp. The earliest cards did not have an image. 'Lipman Postal Cards' appeared when Hymen Lipman purchased John P. Charlton's patent for the little cards around 1878. 
   "It was not until 1907 that private citizens were given permission to write on the address side of the card." This opened the Golden Age of Postcards and millions traveled through the US mail much like the flyers we are all familiar with.
   Today those cards are highly sought after collectibles; postcard collecting ranks third behind coins and stamps in popularity.
   Souvenir cards in America appeared in 1893 with the World's Fair in Chicago and still appear on a limited basis near resort check-ins and tourist centers. The souvenir cards were followed rapidly by advertising and comic cards too numerous to name.
   Early colored cards were hand painted on an assembly line system by women. Each worked with a separate color of paint passing them on to the next artist. This process didn't last long due to a familiar habit of water colorists of putting the tip of the brush in their mouth when it became too dry. The lead content of the paint made the workers sick and unable to continue working. New developments in printing technology also made the labor intensive process of hand printing an obsolete practice.
   Instant communication by cell phone has replaced the fun of opening the mailbox and reading a personal note, which everyone was sure has been read by the mailman. My traveling friends specialized in finding cards with a photograph of a library. I have cards from Sidney, Vancouver, New York,  and Kansas City proudly displaying their public library.
   A beloved card is of the Eiffel Tower sent by my grandmother. She had no way of knowing it was the initial souvenir postcard. It was postmarked Paris, France and had my name and address in her distinctive handwriting. It contained no message. We didn't know she'd left home. She forgot to write a message on my card before she mailed them and left her hotel for a tour of the famous landmark.
   The illustration is a current colored photo of Lake Cumberland after a snow. The card has that bluish cast we all get when photographing on a cloudy day with poor light. I played with it and discovered that when I converted it to black & white I have a stronger illustration.
   We wish to thank Russ Hatter and Gene Burch for their 2015 publication, Postcards of Historic Frankfort Kentucky from which much of our information on the historical development of postcards was obtained.
Nash Black, author of Games of Death.   
   

Covered Bridges

Unknown Ky Covered Bridge - 1930s

   I suspect the book and film Bridges of Madison County had a great deal to do with the renewed interest in preserving and restoring this famous icon of American travel. We recently saw one waiting to be restored and added to an excellent collection of early log structures in a field outside of Bardstown, KY.
  Covered bridges were not the first bridges to be built, settlers had been on our shores nearly 200 years when the first ones appeared, though Charles Wilson Peale (known for his paintings of George Washington) commented in an essay about wooden bridges in 1797, "it has been advised that a covering be added for protection of the structure."
   Credit is given to Timothy Palmer for the first documented covered bridge in Pennsylvania because he signed his name and dated the structure as 1805. Others copied his idea and most wooden bridges after that time were covered.
   The barn like structure over a bridge served a practical purpose. It protected the wood and allowed it to season, very important as green fresh cut planks and poles were often used in the construction. Visit a lumber yard today and you'll see twisted and bucked planks, even in treated lumber, that did not season properly. The protection also strengthen the structure and made it more durable so it would last longer.
   An old story goes that two drunks drove onto a covered bridge and thought they were in their own barn. They climbed down, unhitched the horses, gave them a smack on the rear expecting them to go into their stalls. The horses took off to find their way home and the men were left to pull their wagon for the rest of the journey.
   The first outdoor advertising appeared on the sides of covered bridges, a famous one is the Coca-Cola bridge at Portland, PA.
   We refer to some of our interstate highways as turnpikes or toll roads. Toll booths are found along many major highway systems. The travelers pay a fee for using the road. All over the country some back roads are called pikes. Meaning that sometime during the history of the road a pole (pike) was placed across it and the owner collected a toll (fee) from travelers using their road.
   In the very early days livestock went to market on the hoof, even turkeys were herded on foot. The farmer paid a token per animal and often they were sent a bill when the gatekeeper was too busy to calculate the fare on the spot.
  Many covered bridges were built at the entrance to toll roads as a comfortable place to stop while payment was rendered. Builders designed their wares (bridges) so they could be sold and moved, much like the Amish built small buildings we see today. This was another excellent reason to have them spruced up and looking good. Prior to sale building is not a new technique by any means - savvy 'Yankee' craftsmen have been using it for centuries.
  Sadly many covered bridges when they were by-passed by concrete structures were left to rot. Some remained in use until recently. The bridge at Switzer, KY over Elkhorn Creek in Franklin County was in daily use until a flash flood swept it from its pilings and nearly destroyed it. It was moved from its original location, restored, and closed to traffic.
   We found a beautiful bridge in Ohio near Yellow Springs. Someone had hand-carved wild roses up many of the inside trusses. We took pictures, but the film jumped the sprocket in my camera so I didn't get any slides. We planned to go back to the location to take new photographs, but vandals burned the bridge and the roses were lost forever. Later we used those roses in a ghost story.
   We are indebted to the late Vernon White who wrote the first book on covered bridges of Kentucky and Eric Sloane for his fascinating sketch books of early Americana.
   The photography is from the collection of Whipple Townsend Black. Mr. White could not identify the bridge, but the photo was taken in KY sometime during the late 1920s & 30s as he did most of his work before film became unavailable due to WWII.  

       

Up Town Saturday

 

Ice Cream Shop, Jamestown, KY, original Post Office

After the chores are finished the most important day of the week is Saturday, be it country or town. Breakfast is a hurried affair as each person in a household has special plans for the day. It is a day of socializing with family and friends.
  When people had to travel long distances by horse and wagon some families kept a tiny one-room house in town for sleeping over. In Texas, where some of these cottages still exist they have been restored as small homes for one or two persons. Others slept in & under their wagons or bunked in with family members who lived in town.
   The advent of automobiles didn't change the custom of going to town on Saturday for supplies, business affairs, recreation, and visiting. Even today though the meeting places have changed from Main Streets and school or church buildings people flock to large indoor malls with vast parking lots especially when cooler weather arrives. Saturday is the true vacation day of the week for the communities.
   Going to town meant visiting with friends while one used a laundromat to the the entire family wash at one time in a few hours instead of stringing it out over an entire day one load at a time. Even thought a family had a washer and dryer at home the men of the family never understood the desire of their women folk to use those big machines in town.
   Stocking up on a week or month's supplies was important for there were few country groceries near their homes where one could obtain all the goods necessary to sustain the family. The women generally shopped in chain groceries devoted to food. For clothes, sewing materials, and shoes they frequented a dry goods store. Children were delighted to view the bones of their feet in an x-ray machine, it didn't matter that there was a warning sign indicating harm from too frequent usage.
   Men left their corn to be ground for feed at a mill or picked up sacks at the feed store, and tended to congregate in the courthouse, hardware store, or pool room. A haberdashery provided clothes for men and boys. Drug stores had a fountain for ice cream delights and sodas, sandwiches, magazines & newspapers, cosmetics, and coffee besides medicines.
   The star of the town was the movie theater.

Art Deco Star Theater, Russell Springs, KY

Saturday was double-feature day of westerns, cartoons, and news reels. If children under twelve could manage to get to the show before one o'clock the cost was a dime, with fifteen cents left from a treasured quarter for treats. No one complained if you sat through the showing twice except your parents if you were late for supper.
   One of the most unique small town movie houses was in Dixon, KY long before drive-in theaters. Each spring a man would paint the outside wall of his service station a fresh white. During the spring, summer, and fall on good weather Saturday nights he would use the wall as a movie screen. Patrons would bring their own treats, chairs, and cushions to watch a motion picture show.
   When friends from my home town get together to travel memory lane this story always comes up. The stores stayed open until eight o'clock. For a short period of time the only television in town sat in the window of the furniture store. It had a screen about eight inches square. On Saturday night people would gather on the sidewalk outside and watch a show on this strange new luxury. I don't remember what it cost, if I ever knew, but everyone was sure it was beyond their price range. After the program people would go next door to the drug store for a soda or a hand-dipped ice cream cone before going home.
   I've talked about the delights of going to town on Saturday, but there is a hidden picture behind the story. Each community had the stores I've mentioned and they provided jobs, substance for the owner, and taxes to the government. Those shops and businesses made the town. When they began to die and disappear from the scene a way of life for many Americans also vanished. Some communities are making an effort to bring back these institutions to attract tourists, but I expect it's mostly for their own benefit.