Old California Views
I admit that this is an oddball selection today. But that's what can happen on "Anything Goes Saturday"!
First up is a scan from a slide that I am pretty sure is from the 1940s; a parade of some kind is going on, with a western theme. "Rogers Stables", says that banner. Will Rogers? Well, no... Trav Rogers, actually. Who he? He was a noted civic leader, developer and founder of the Ranch Club. In about 1940, the Trav Rogers Stables were built at 1445 N. Sunrise Way. The original building, a dining room, flanked on either side by box stalls for horses, was to become the Ranch Club. The stalls were later rebuilt into rooms for paying guests. With the genial Trav greeting arrivals with his familiar, “Hello, Hello, Hello,” and Frank Bogert serving as manager, the Trav Rogers Stables soon became the place to go, the center of desert social life.
Many of the members had well known names—Freeman Gosden, Charlie Farrell, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Bruce Cabot, and Jackie Cooper, who manned the drums many a night. Palm Springs became used to having Trav’s stagecoach and wagons furnish the backbone for most of the early parades down Palm Canyon Drive, before it had lighted palm trees.
Neat! I should add that I had a second slide featuring this parade, with quite a lot of stuck-on mystery gunk. I looked up "How to clean old slides safely", and one article recommended a special chemical, which I purchased. After applying some to a swab, I was horrified to discover that all of the emulsion wiped off like marker off of a white board. OOPS.
Here an old "linen-style" postcards; the inset in the lower left shows the El Dorado Hotel exterior, seen in the first scan. Imagine seeing Clark Gable and Bing Crosby just lounging around. I'd call them "Clarky" and "Bingy" (just don't call Gable "The Clarkster", he hated that).
I like old photos of hotels and motels, and this one just happened to be on top of a stack that I was about to scan. The Rancho 101 Motel - all I could really find out about it is that it was in San Diego, along US 101.
There are several old postcards from what I assume is the same Motel. Here's one, the place looks charming and rustic.
And here's another one:
Each room has a radio! You won't miss Fibber McGee and Molly.
I hope you have enjoyed these oddball images.
9 comments:
Major-
"Full-tile showers; Radios. 'Sleep off the highway - it's quiet".
Now that's a motel speaking my language-!
It's rather distressing to hear the "recommended special chemical" managed to destroy the gunky slide. I assume this 'miracle chemical' was not lighter fluid - as that's the go-to cleaner, gunk/marker remover that works on vinyl records, cardboard, heavy paper, etc., and in my experience has never caused any issues. Period. Truly, "the collectors' friend". (Admittedly, I've never used it on film emulsion). But if you haven't tried it, it would definitely be worth checking, as it's cheap, relatively easy to find [still] and often truly works miracles.
Thanks, Major.
Wow, so the cleaning chemical removed the emulsion? Exactly the opposite of what it was meant to do? How could the source get it so wrong!
The postcards look really nice! All the trees and flowers make Rancho 101 Motel a very inviting place! Not only do the units have radios, there are "some kitchenettes". Does that mean only some of the units had kitchenettes?
An interesting, and pleasant, anything goes Saturday, Major. Thanks.
Your experiences with slide cleaning have terrified me from attempting the same.
Oddly, what sent me down a rabbit hole this morning was not any of your photos but the “Red Mill Courts 4110 Alameda Avenue EL PASO TEXAS” stamp on the back of the second Rancho 101 postcard.
The Red Mill Courts, later known as the Stagecoach Motel, were built in 1924 along the Bankhead Highway. The Bankhead Highway was a coast-to-coast route from Washington, D.C., to San Diego (incredibly, and unusually for the era, it also went from San Diego to Washington, D.C.), part of the informal National Auto Trail system that included better-known routes like the Lincoln and Dixie Highways that predated the US Numbered Highway System established in 1926. The segment that passed in front of the Red Mill Courts later became US 80, which ran from Savannah, Georgia, to San Diego and has itself passed into history west of Dallas.
This particular postcard for the Rancho 101 would have been given out at the Red Mill Courts (and, presumably, other motels within a few days’ drive along major routes) as an advertisement for both motels. Not a bad bit of low-cost advertising in the days before the interwebs and hand-held tricorders.
Sadly, most of the Red Mill Courts/Stagecoach Motel was torn down sometime in late 2020 or early 2021, a victim of time and, oh, rock and roll or chemtrails or something.
Click HERE for a vintage postcard of the Red Mill Courts. Note the “red mill” on the signage, which also call it the “Red Mill Court” (singular), which is different from the name on the postcard itself.
Click HERE for another postcard showing the interior of the lobby.
Click HERE for a photo of what some of the 60 units looked like in 1941.
Click HERE for a Google Maps view of the place as the Stagecoach Motel in 2008.
Click HERE for a Google Maps view of the site today. Only one building seems to have survived (pan left to see it).
Thanks, Major.
(Say…does anybody remember what today’s photos were about?)
I enjoy pictures of old Palm Springs, and 1950’s-60’s Palm Springs, when it was still sort of a small town composed in winter primarily of Hollywood exiles.
Notice on the El Dorado sign, advertises “year-round reasonable rates”, which implies the existence of some establishments that charged unreasonable rates, at least seasonally.
The second Rancho 101 postcard photo is charming. I hope they didn’t update the motel buildings to match the 1950’s sign, because change isn’t always progress.
Re: cleaning things. I’ve discovered that WD40 is an excellent vinyl record cleaner. Might work on photo negatives. If you want the full process, LMK.
Thanks Major!
JG
Chuck, thank you! The Red Mill Courts looks like a fine establishment, I’m sorry it’s lost. I was expecting something more Gallic, due to the name, happy to be surprised.
JG
Thanks Chuck-! The Red Mill looked like quite the place way back when.
Nanook, I have used lighter fluid, and also Naphtha, and another thing is Bestine, rubber cement thinner that I believe is mostly Naphtha. I’ve used all three successfully for many different things.
JB, I can only assume that those early Kodachromes were much more fragile than later ones, which I have cleaned with rubbing alcohol (after testing on slides that don’t matter). I wish I could have found better photos of Rancho 101, but the postcards were all there was.
Chuck, well that was unexpected! I guess I am glad that you found something to be excited about. Did you have any previous knowledge of the Red Mill Courts? How much of this were you already aware of? A few years ago I went down a similar rabbit hole regarding Fred Harvey and the Harvey Houses, which I found pretty interesting. Is there a Judy Garland movie about the Red Mill Courts? I didn’t think so! I genuinely appreciate your enthusiasm about the Red Mill Courts, and enjoyed reading your research and looking at the images! So thanks!
JG, some of those old places look so homey and full of charm and character… I guess we have to settle for sterile and clean (if we’re lucky).
Nanook, it’s fun to imagine a road trip in the 1940s (is this trip really necessary?) and seeing America the way it was back then.
JG, I’ve never been to Palm Springs, sadly. No reason to go. My grandma used to tell me about when she and my grandpa would go out there in the late 1940s and into the 1950s to see musical acts. I wish I could remember which ones! I also can’t help thinking of some wartime Jack Benny radio shows that he recorded in Palm Springs - lots of date shake jokes. Wow, WD40 on records? I’ve never heard that!
Chuck: Tha Red Mill lobby would be a perfect set for a prewar Broadway play, either a farce ("Phyllis! I thought you and Reggie were in Boston." "No time to explain. Pretend you're an Indian!") or a whodunit ("All I kin say is, mighty strange to find a bunch of city folk here in the off season. And one of 'em impaled on a pool cue in the Apache Lounge.")
Major, I’d honestly never heard of the Red Mill Courts or the Bankhead Highway, nor did I know that US 80 had been decommissioned west of Dallas by the early ‘90s. Bless that random stamp on the back of that postcard for embiggening my world.
DBenson, by jingo, you’re right! And I would pay good American money to see either of those plays.
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