If you want some cheap entertainment, drive around to local antiques stores and look for boxes of old postcards like the one Amber and I went through at Avondale Antiques this past weekend. Sometimes the cards themselves have neat photos or artwork on them. Sometimes they’ll have something interesting written on them. You can usually buy them for a dollar or two if you feel guilty about standing there and reading without buying something else.
Atlanta Postcard from 1945
The most interesting part of this card to me is it appears as though the Stone Mountain monument is drawn on it in the second A and maybe the second T. The idea of the Stone Mountain monument goes as far back as 1912, but work on carving it didn’t start until 1964. Maybe there was something else that just looked like Stone Mountain? What else could it be?
(Update 1:51 p.m. – I misread the Wikipedia entry. The carving started sometime in or after 1916, stopped in 1928, and was resumed in the 1964. However, it still appears the card is based on artists’ conceptions of what would be there, and not what was actually there at the time. So it’s still strange. See this postcard on eBay that Greg linked to in the comments. Thanks Greg!)
Click through to the full version of this post card to read a note from Carolyn to Eddie written on March 8, 1945. Note also the “give to the war fund” post mark.
Inman Park Festival Postcard from 1980
Here’s the 1980 description of the Inman Park Festival found on this post card:
Stately Inman Park, Atlanta’s first suburb (c. 1890), hasn’t been the same since “urban pioneers” began rescuing its Victorian homes from slum lords in the 1970s. Each April the locals celebrate the neighborhood’s revival with one of the Southeast’s more offbeat festivals. It includes an elegant tour of homes, a bizarre parade, arts and crafts show, flea market, live music, and a host of jugglers, clowns and mimes. Y’all come.
I feel cheated that I never saw any jugglers when I went a couple of years ago.
The artist credited with the card’s design is James Flournoy Holmes, who is also notable for art on several Southern rock albums, including The Allman Brothers Band’s Eat a Peach and The Marshall Tucker Band’s first self-titled album.
Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau Postcard from the 1980s
Click through to the full version and check out CNN’s archaic computers, the Fox Theatre’s pre-digital marquee, and the Hawks’ awesome Dominique Wilkins-era uniforms. What I really want to know is what the hell is that structure in picture on the bottom row, second from the left?
Postcard from The Wren’s Nest
I don’t think this postcard is all that old. I’m guessing 1990s. Lain, do you have any idea?
(Update 2:30 p.m. – Lain thinks it’s pre-1985, but not much earlier. Read his comment for a full explanation.)
(Update 2:21 p.m. – I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Atlanta Time Machine’s awesome collection of Atlanta postcards. Just wait until after business hours to check them out. If you’re like me, you’ll get sucked in and spend hours there.)
The Wren’s Nest postcard is a little earlier than the 90s — pre-1985 for sure, but not too much earlier given the size of the big tree in front.
The house was that color for most of the 20th century. When our organization changed the colors back to their original 1884 colors , there was a big hullabaloo because it “had always been” gray on gray. To this day we still have people come in and complain that it’s never been the same since we changed the colors.
Great post, Rusty. I’ve got some old postcards (the oldest is from 1909) of the Wren’s Nest that you’ve inspired me to scan on in and upload.
July 7th, 2009 at 12:48 pmMaybe the Stone Mountain carving on the 1945 postcard is placed there optimistically! And you know how it can be with these things – work is supposed to start “any day now,” and then 10 years later, still nothing.
I think we did actually see some jugglers at the Inman Park Festival, but I was looking thru my pictures and this is the closest I could find. Doesn’t mean I didn’t just miss snapping a photo of them, though.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:21 pmHey, Rusty. You were wondering about the thing that looks like Stone Mountain in the second “T” in Atlanta. It was, if I’m not mistaken, a sort of artist’s rendering of what the finished project at Stone Mountain would ultimately look like.
Also, the carving was actually started in 1923 and was done by Gutzon Borglum, the same guy who later went on to oversee the Mount Rushmore carvings. I think Lee’s head was unveiled in 1924 and carving came to a halt not long after that….until 1964. That’s what Wikipedia reports and what I’ve read elsewhere offline. I know you linked Wikipedia but maybe you looked too quickly?
Also of interest….here’s a postcard now for sale on ebay showing the artist’s conception that appears in the second “T” on your scanned postcard.
http://tinyurl.com/lyd4tt
July 7th, 2009 at 1:45 pmThanks Greg, yes, good catch, I read that too quickly and missed the part about work stopping and starting. Will update the post with a correction shortly.
It’s still interesting to me that they made a postcard with artists’ conceptions of what would be there and not what was actually there.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:48 pmI believe the white structure you are curious about is an earlier version of the one that towers over Underground Atlanta (the peach drops from it on New Year’s Eve). I could be wrong, but that’s what it looks like to me, and Underground was much more of a tourist attraction around the time of that postcard.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:00 pmGood call Steven. I’d never been to a Peach Drop, so that hadn’t occurred to me. I went to peachdrop.com and sure enough found this image buried in an unlinkable Flash photo gallery.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:43 pm[...] resemblance to the Atlanta postcard from 1945 I posted a scan of in a previous post is not [...]
July 25th, 2009 at 1:24 pm