Sunday, May 25, 2014

Fort Wilderness, October 3 1956

Fort Wilderness was a welcome sight for weary travelers. Because they knew that, in spite of its crude construction, it had a soft-serve ice cream machine inside. As you all know, in the 1840's, "frontier ice cream" was mostly made of tallow, sassafras root, and adobe. So genuine soft-serve was quite the treat! Nobody had invented the chocolate-dipped cones just yet, hence the phrase  "roughing it". 


There was also a tiki bar in the officer's quarters, although they often ran out of pineapples and had to use spuds instead. This was one of the "hard facts" that Walt Disney referred to in his famous speech.


7 comments:

  1. Major-

    Wow - both shots are killer. The first shot taken almost "across the bow (stern-?)" really draws one into Fort Wilderness, and all those scoops of Frontier Ice Cream. Yummy-!

    Thanks, Major.

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  2. Awesome commentary today!

    Thanks Major.

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  3. Nice shots today. Love the first one. Wonder if that's pre-Cascade Peak area in the lower left of the pic. Thanks, Major.

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  4. These pictures make me homesick for my youth.

    I second MCK's assessment above.

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  5. WOW-

    Chuck grew up in a real, live fort-??!! (Not to mention all the Frontier Ice Cream you could eat).

    Man, now I'm jealous.

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  6. Nanook, back in those days, the "cones" were corn tortillas!

    Monkey Cage Kurt, thanks!

    K. Martinez, it very well could be, although I confess to not knowing exactly where the picture was taken from. I think you might be right though.

    Chuck, I am OFTEN nostalgic for those good old days, for sure.

    Nanook, Chuck lived in a pillow-and-blanket fort!

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  7. Ooooh! I have to share this post on my Bring Back Fort Wilderness Facebook page!!!

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