Random Pix, 1950's
Here are two 1950's photos that aren't the best things in the world, but I'll give them a good solid "C". Maybe even a "B-".
First up is this too-dark shot of the old Bekins Van in Town Square. I wonder if the artwork featuring three galloping horses is one that Bekins actually used in the early 20th century? That gentleman will tell you that he remembers when the ice truck would come by, and he and Spanky and Porky would ask for chips of ice to lick on a hot day. Then they'd go to the clubhouse ("No women allowed!") and talk about soap box racers and how pretty Miss Crabtree was.
The peeling broadsides advertising the Golden Horseshoe Revue add an aura of authenticity. Notice that Judy Marsh and Donald Novis are listed. Judy Marsh was replaced by Betty Taylor sometime in 1956 (according to the D-23 website). Donald Novis was the original "Irish Tenor", replaced by Fulton Burley in 1962 due to Novis' poor health.
Next is this photo of the El Dorado Hotel in friendly Rainbow Ridge. The mythical city of El Dorado was a "golden city", and the hotel certainly looks golden as it is bathed in the last rays of sunlight. I have no evidence that this was a winter day, but I feel it in my bones! Speaking of bones, if you squint really hard, you can just make out a few grave markers to the left of the chapel up on the hill.
Say, not bad for a B-!
27 comments:
Major-
Yes, that Bekins artwork replicates one of many early designs Bekins used on their moving vans. Personally, I prefer thinking of the horses more as a tribute to Mr. Ed, Pokey, and Trigger.
Thanks, Major.
Major, I think we need to change that grade to a B+, due to the uniqueness of these photos.
That Bekins van shot with Mr. Ed, Pokey and Trigger is nice - especially with the GHS advertising behind it. (Hey, Nanook, how come ‘Silver’ didn’t ‘make the cut’?)
And that El Dorado shot looks realistic, and I love those whispy clouds and golden glow. (That cemetery sure looks real and creepy.)
Thanks, Major!
Customer :” is the horse named Pokey because he’s slow ?”
Livery Stable Clerk : “ no, because everyone who rides him ends up with a eye gouged-out by a tree branch”
The posters behind the furniture wagon : I recognize the one to the far left ... but not the one in the middle . Is it also another from the Golden Horseshoe?
@ Sue-
Ask the artist... there are only three horses pictured, so... there you go.
@ Mike Cozart-
Ouch-!!
Oh, Miss Crabtree, there's something heavy on my heart.......
I'm not even sure that the traditional grading scale counts right now with all of the schools closed due to COVID-19. Check with your state Education Department and local school district to see how online learning is being implemented in your area.
Regardless of whether these count for a grade, I'm sure enjoying them.
I hope HBG2 at Long Forgotten sees the Rainbow Ridge photo.
Thanks, Major!
You guys are silly! Everybody knows the horses are named "Careful," "Quick," and "Kind!" They even sing about them in the jingle! Well, that "takes a load off of my mind." I'm off to hum the tune the rest of the day!
@Chuck, our school is doing a pass/fail system, where you either get a 100% or a fail. You have to get below a 60% to fail, so this B+ automatically shoots up to a 100%. It's the photographer's lucky day! Even if you get a D-, it still counts as an A++. Take that as you will...
Since no photos on GDB are ever "fail"-worthy, you therefore have the right to title every post from here on out as "THE BEST PICTURES OF DISNEYLAND EVER!!" Okay, that's enough. ;-)
Andrew, you now have extra time to put together at least 10,000 more posts for your blog - if you plan to possibly beat the Major’s record. ;). And, by the way, you do a great job with your blog . . . so I also assume you also do great in school and earned an A+!
The Major is right, the Bekins pic is a solid B, but any pictures of Rainbow Ridge always gets an A+. A++ if it includes any part of the Mine Train. Thanks Major. Great comments from everyone today as well.
The Bekins building in my area was the tallest building between Cupertino and San Jose for a long time. And at my school it was Miss Pieman. True.
It's an A around here,too. There really aren't any photos of DL that fail, are there?
Thanks Major,
Dz
Oh, and I saw Wally Boag yesterday on an old MMC (season 1, ep 2) playing with balloons. (Thanks, Chuck)
Dz
I'll have to give the first pic another B+ at least. Like everything about it. And thanks for the pic of where I always wished to be my place of residence.
Andrew, great blog! Will be visiting frequently from now on.
But, having a problem viewing most of the pics. I get a few but most are a big grey minus sign. Anyone out there know how to remedy the problem?
Thanks Major
DrGoat, I see what you mean. Luckily it only shows up for my last few posts, so I'll just go back in and re-add the pictures. Hopefully that works. Thanks for the compliment and for alerting me to this!
Sue, you're too kind. At the rate I'm going (1 post every other week), I'm set to beat the GDB record in about 381 years! Better get crackin'! ;-)
A rare picture of the Rainbow Ridge graveyard, bathed in the golden light of sunset.
Not a bad hill on which to rest your bones.
And the hotel offers clean beds as well. Who could ask for more? Was Tailor Joe a real live person, or a made-up name?
The Bekins building was good-sized, but not the tallest in Fresno. It was located right at the foot of the freeway exit we would take to go downtown, and it is still there, still Bekins, or at least the sign says so still.
The use of real companies, either as sponsors, or scene-setting, was always a great feature of Disneyland that heightened the illusion of reality. Little pieces of the real world that extended through the berm to make us feel at home in the future, or in the past.
Whoops forgot to sign my post above.
JG
Nanook, I’m sure you remember those Bekins vans from your childhood in the 1910’s! Pokey is really thinking outside the box, since he was made out of clay. What about Dale Evans’ horse “Buttermilk”? Or Tom Mix’s “Tony”? So many to choose from!
Lou and Sue, OK, I will change it to a B+, especially since you bribed me with a Hostess cupcake. Also, “Silver” was kind of full of himself, success went to his head. It happens to horses all the time. I love the Rainbow Ridge cemetery!
Mike Cozart, I approve of your gross joke! I generally avoid eye-gouging humor on this blog, but that doesn’t mean that YOU have to. And yes, it appears that all three posters were for the Golden Horseshoe Revue.
Nanook, maybe it’s a case of Schrodinger’s Horse. The horse is there and not there. No wait, that’s dumb. Sorry.
TokyoMagic!, they call me Chubbsey Ubbsey.
Chuck, it must be very strange to be a kid right now. I mean, it’s strange for everybody, but missing a large chunk of a school year is way out of left field. I hope HBG2 sees that one too!
stu29573, it sounds like you know what you’re talking about. Are you sure none of the horses are named “Surly” or “Remorseful”? I don’t know the Bekins jingle, maybe it’s for the best.
Andrew, my gosh, that’s the sort of grading system I need. I would be a star! Sure there have been a few fails on the last 14 years, but I’m just going to pretend that they have all been A+ posts as per your rules.
Lou and Sue, 10,000 more posts?! It would be another 14 years before I got to 10,000. I don’t even want to think about it.
Jonathan, maybe I was too harsh, but the darkness of these pictures brought their overall GPA down at least a whole grade.
dzacher, we still have a building with a Bekins sign on top; the sign is a historical landmark I believe, but Bekins has long vacated the premises.
dzacher, are all the episodes of the original MMC on Disney+?
DrGoat, Rainbow Ridge is great, but even if one was 4 feet tall, the El Dorado Hotel would be cramped quarters! I’ll hide in the nearby opera house like a phantom.
Andrew, I went to look at your Disneyland map pics, and thought it was just my horrible internet that was the problem, but most of the images did not load, which has not been an issue in the past.
JG (I knew it was you anyway!), all I need is a clean room. I don’t need anything fancy! When I go to New York City, I have a tiny, clean hotel room that suits me just fine, and it doesn’t break the bank. I actually don’t know if Bekins exists as a company anymore, or if they were bought out, or just went out of business. If only there was a way to research such a thing!
dzacher, you are most welcome.
DrGoat, you wanted to live in the Bekins van?
Major, sadly, no, not all of the original MMC is out there; at least, not yet. A lot of the starting lineup of Disney+ has been stuff that they already had digital copies of for DVD releases (like the silver tin series).
Don’t worry Major, you only have to do 5,000 more posts. It’s Andrew, who has to do at least 10,000 to pass you up, since he just started last year.
If you enlarge that second picture so that all you see is the cemetery and church, you can imagine the Frankenstein monster slowly coming out from behind the church.
Was it common in the old west to access furnished hotel balconies through open windows?
@Steve DeGaetano
Only in buildings built to 5/8 scale or less.
It's in the UBC.
JG
Major, I was hoping you'd come back with the Cubbsey Ubbsey line! I kind of had a feeling you would know it! Also, I caught your Surly and Remorseful reference! "Duff Beer for me! Duff Beer for you! I'll have a Duff, you have one too!" See, I don't ONLY have I.L.L. lines stuck in my head! ;-)
Actually, on the accessing balconies through windows question, it was (at least in my hometown of Denison Texas.) Denison was born as a railroad town when the KATY railroad built it in 1873. There were several houses with balconies over porches that could only be accessed through large windows. As a child it was explained to me that buildings were taxed on number of doors, but not windows. I'm not sure if that part is true, but it made sense to a six year old!
Learn that poem,
learn that poem,
learn that poem.
@Stu29573
That's very probable.
I can think of a couple of reasons why a window would be used instead of a door.
1. Taxation, as you describe. Practically every aspect of a building exterior has been subject to some kind of taxation, facade width (Amsterdam), materials (lots of places), windows (Britain), roof materials, etc..
2. Waterproofing the sill. It's very likely that the balcony was not waterproofed, but made of boards over beams. Having a door opening on to it might make it harder to waterproof the door sill and keep water out of the wall. Using a window might mean you had to step over a higher window sill, but would keep the balcony/floorline junction away from the opening, making it all simpler to build. Also, in 1873, there was nothing resembling a building code, so no regulations that the opening had to be any particular size or shape, or have a threshold at the floor line.
3. Symmetry of the facade. Architects are an odd bunch, they love symmetrical plans and facades. At the time the El Dorado was supposed built (I'm guessing 1849), there were not many architects, not enough to handle all the buildings needed, so they published pattern books that carpenters could buy and copy from. Most of the designs were just sketches, and a balanced facade was very important. If there were only two openings possible due to size, and no rules requiring a door, it's very plausible that the builder would follow a design for a larger building and just use two windows.
Just some thoughts.
JG
Great thoughts ! Thanks!
Chuck, that’s kind of what I thought, I’d heard that there wasn’t the complete back-catalog of the old TV shows that some fans had hoped for.
Lou and Sue, it took me 14 years to do 5000 posts, I don’t think I have the will to do another 5000!
Steve DeGaetano, I’m sure you have seen PLENTY of westerns in which cowboys exited a saloon through a glass window, why wouldn’t they enter the same way?
JG, It kind of looks like there’s a door to the right on the lower floor, although I don’t see a knob where I would expect one to be. WHO KNOWS.
TokyoMagic!, wouldn’t you know, I got it wrong too. “You can call me Chubbsey Ubbsey” is more like it. I always loved the “surprised” expression that Miss Crabtree did; mouth forming a tight little “O”, eyebrows raised as she blinked dramatically, sort of like a “double take”. I still do that as a joke sometimes.
stu29573, good grief, that can’t be true?! “We’re taxed by the number of doors, so let’s not add any doors!”. It sounds like something Mel Brooks would have thought up!
Anon, I BLEW IT, I should have said “learn that poem”. In my memory, Jackie pronounced it “pome”.
JG, I wonder if I would get taxed more for the giant statues of myself holding up the roof? If anything I should be PAID. My goodness, I never expected a serious study of the use of windows versus doors, but I’ll take it! I love the idea of “pattern books” for buildings. “I need a blacksmith’s shop”. Just turn to page 127, that’s where the chapter for those begins. “House of ill-repute”. Page 15 (people wanted to build those right away). Thanks!
stu29573, that’s just the sort of thing you’ll find here on GDB, no thanks to me.
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