The View Master

In the 1954 Sears Christmas Catalog something called a "View Master" among its pages. You would slip a round disc into the device then hold it towards the light.  When you looked into it you saw a scenic picture that looked real. You might have seen a waterfall that looked like it was right in front of you!  Then you would pull down a lever and another picture would rotate into view.  Those were the days!

The View Master was a stereoscopic  device that displayed 3-D transparent color images from circular cardboard reels.  It was invented by piano repairman, organ maker and avid photographer William B. Gruber and Harold Graves in Portland, Oregon.  Introduced at the 1939 New York World's Fair as a high-tech alternative to traditional scenic postcards.

Production survived and expanded during WWII when the U.S. military bought hundreds of thousands of viewers and reels for aircraft and artillery identification training.  They adopted the View Master because its 3-D perception offered a realistic way to train troops in visual recognition. 

Today, View Masters are worth anywhere from $10 to $50 for common models though rare editions and scarce reels can sell for $150 to over $500.

The View Master to a kid was magical!  

 

From Sea to Shining Sea

Route 20 passes through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Oregon.

U.S. Route 20 is the longest road in the United States, stretching 3,365 miles from Boston, Massachusetts to Newport, Oregon.

Portions of the highway originally began as trails used by Native Americans for travel and trade across the landscape. Stagecoach lines connected growing settlements. Increased use by early automobiles in the 1920s led to the paving of dirt and gravel segments.   Formally commissioned as part of the U.S. Numbered Highway System on November 11, 1926, the original route ran from Boston to Yellowstone National Park. The western terminus was extended all the way to Oregon, meeting U.S. Route 101 on the west coast.  After shifting infrastructure designations over the decades, it officially became the longest continuous highway in the country in 1963 confirmed by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Serving as a primary east-west artery before modern interstate highways, the route drove westward expansion in 1940 before reaching its current length in 1960. After WWII, families used the highway for leisure travel and cross-country summer vacations.  

Traffic declined following the construction of parallel superhighways llike the New York State Thruway and the Interstate system, leaving Route 20 preserved as a time capsule of classic roadside Americana. Groups like the Route 20 Association of New York State now work to preserve and promote the historic corridor and its scenic byway segments. 

This Rotary Gas Garden is a prime example of a time capsule location on Route 20 located between Westfield, New York and Ripley, New York.

Rotary Gas Garden

Route 20

Proprietor, Ernest W. Burdick

..then..

..now..

Aerial View of Route 20 and Old Route 20

The Iconic Forsythe Bridge Looking East 

Circa 1950

"20 mph on Route 20"

Roadtrips that follow the cross-country highways of yesteryear mostly take place in people's imagination, not on the blacktop. However, there is one historic highway where it is still possible to get in touch with the glory days of the American road trip.  And that road trip is Route 20.  For most of its length, Route 20 runs roughly parallel to I-90 which connects Boston and Seattle .. a distance of 3,100 miles. 

Sidenote:  Ernest W. Burdick was my father.

 

Mickey Mouse made his public debut on November 18, 1928 in the groundbreaking animated short Steamboat Willie.

In May 1928, Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse originally intended to be named "Mortimer Mouse" before Lillian Disney* suggested "Mickey".   In 1930, the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip launched, expanding Mickey's popularity worldwide. In 1941, animator Fred Moore redesigned Mickey to give him a friendlier face, pupils and a pear-shaped body. In 1955, the original Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television and Disneyland opened in California making the park Mickey's official home. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his 50th birthday.

The Mickey Mouse star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard.

*Lillian Marie (Bounds) Disney was an American ink and paint artist and the wife of Walt Disney from 1925 until his death in 1966. They were married on July 13, 1925 in Idaho at her brother's home.  She wore a dress that she had made herself.  The couple had two daughters, Diane Marie Disney Miller (1933-2013) and Sharon Mae Disney Brown Lund (1936-1993).

Lillian Disney

Circa 1951

Lillian lived to be 98 and died on December 16, 1997. Born in Spalding, Idaho in 1899, Lillian graduated from high school then attended college. She left Idaho in 1923 to move to Southern California where she met future husband, Walt Disney while working as a secretary for his company. I think we can all agree and thank Lillian Disney for suggesting to Walt that he change the name of his iconic cartoon mouse character to .. Mickey!

Minnie

Circa 1928

 

Colorful vintage spinning tops were famously made by the iconic American toy manufacturer J. Chein & Co.  Chein was a prominent American toy manufacturer known for its stamped and lithographed tin mechanical toys, operating from 1903 through the 1980s.  Established in 1903 by Julius Chein in a New York City loft. Early products began by producing small tin prizes for Cracker Jack boxes and affordable items for five-and-dime stores.  In 1907, the company opened a dedicated a printing and production plant in Harrison, New Jersey in 1907.  They produced colorful piggy banks, globe banks and lithographed sand pails. 

Etch A Sketch 

The Ohio Art Company is an American manufacturing business best known for creating the iconic Etch A Sketch. It was introduced in the 1960s after being invented by French electrician Andre Cassagnes.  It became the company's most famous product.  In February 2016, the company sold the Etch A Sketch brand to Spin Master Corp. in a move designed to allow it to focus on its metal lithography business.

Founded in 1908 by Dr. Henry S. Winzeler, a dentist, in Archbold, Ohio. He sold his dental practice because he was convinced novelty manufacturing held great promise.

In 1912, the headquarters were moved to Bryan, Ohio. The company transitioned into a major toy maker after WWI producing colorful tea sets, drums and sand pails.  They also secured early licensing details with Disney.  In the early 1930s, Ohio Art was one of the very first companies to license a character from Walt Disney for a toy named Steam Boat Willie, the precursor to Mickey Mouse.  Ohio Art truly made history with this iconic first licensing agreement with Walt Disney.

 

Cracker Jack

Cracker Jack is a famous American snack made of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts.  The iconic Sailor Jack logo on the Cracker Jack box was modeled after Robert Rueckheim, the grandson of company co-founder, Frederick William Rueckheim.

Robert Rueckheim was the son of Edward Rueckheim (the eldest of the Rueckheim brothers who created the snack.  His likeness was captured and introduced as part of the brand's mascot artwork around 1916.  

Bingo the dog was the small dog accompanying Sailor Jack.  The character was based on a real-life stray dog named Russell, who was adopted in 1917 by partner Henry Eckstein.  Eckstein insisted the beloved pet be added to the packaging alongside the boy. 

In 1937, the artwork was refined, changing the boy's hat to white and shifting the dog's position.

It was first shown to the public at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  The name and slogan "The More you Eat, the More You Want" were registered in 1896. In that year, a coating process was perfected to stop the popcorn from sticking together, leading to the name 'Cracker Jack".  In 1908, the snack became famous when it was immortalized in the baseball anthem "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". 

Cracker Jack stopped including traditional physical toy prizes in 2016.  The most valuable Cracker Jack prizes are the 1914 and 1915 baseball cards.   Complete sets in near-mint condition are worth between $150,000 and $375,000 with individual star player cards that include the name, Ty Cobb commanding five-figure sums at auction.  Rare die-cast or pot-metal cars, trains and tin litho airplanes can fetch anywhere from $40 to over $100 depending on rarity and condition. 

In 1912, the snack began the tradition of putting a prize inside every box.

 

Buffalo Trace Distillery 

113 Great Buffalo Terrace

Frankfort, Kentucky

Buffalo Trace Distillery is America's oldest continuously operating distillery offering complimentary historic grounds tours and bourbon tastings. It remains the only major Kentucky distillery to offer daily tours and guided tastings completely free of charge. The complimentary Hard Hat Tour + Tasting is a behind-the-scenes journey through the full bourbon-making process.

The distillery has operated on the banks of the Kentucky River for over 200 years along an ancient buffalo path.  The property is a designated National Historic Landmark on July 22, 2013.  It was also entered on the National Register of Historic Places on May 2, 2001.  

It famously continued distilling for medicinal purposes during Prohibition. The 50-acre scenic campus features a group of six buildings, constructed between 1880 and 1907 with a blend of rugged 19th-century architecture. There is a Clubhouse and Lodge, both of which are rustic log buildings were constructed in 1935 for the use of employees and corporate visitors.  

Stony Point

The residential home on the grounds of the Buffalo Trace Distillery built by Colonel Albert Bacon Blanton.  It was built in 1934 by Colonel Blanton as a private residence for himself and his wife. The Frankfort architectural firm of Leo Oberwarth and Son designed the home.

A beautiful example of an Arts and Crafts style, this house retains its original woodwork and intricate detail.  A nature lover, avid bird watcher and gardener, Colonel Blanton designed the gardens around his home to attract many different types of birds.  Colonel Blanton lived in the house until his death in 1959 spending many hours bird watching from the sun porch on the second floor.  Today this house serves as offices for distillery staff.

Blanton's Bourbon is distilled and hand-bottled at the historic Buffalo Trace Distillery. Introduced in 1984 by master distiller Elmer T. Lee Blanton's was created as the world's first commercial single-barrel bourbon named in honor of distillery pioneer Colonel Albert Bacon Blanton. 

All Blanton's barrels are aged in the famous metal-clad Warehouse H built by Colonel Blanton in 1935 where extreme temperature swings accelerate the interaction between the wood and the whiskey.  

The iconic bottle stoppers feature eight different horse-and-jockey designs with each bottle having a letter that when completely collected spell out

 B-L-A-N-T-O-N-S 

with the second "N" distinguished by a colon (N:) immediately following the letter.

Each stopper features a tiny horse and jockey in a different stage of a horse racing, moving from the starting gate to the finish line. If you collect a used set of all eight unique stoppers, you can mail them to the Buffalo Trace Distillery Gift Shop and they will mount them on a wooden barrel stave* for free.

*A stave is an individual narrow strip of wood used to build a bourbon barrel or an extra piece of wood added to age and flavor the whiskey. Barrelmakers fit 31 to 33 staves together side-by-side and hold them in place with metal hoops to form the body of a standard 53-gallon bourbon barrel. The inside of these structural staves is toasted and charred imparting classic bourbon notes such as vanilla, caramel and oak spice into the resting spirit. 

While law does not require bourbon to be made in Kentucky, the Bluegrass state produces approximately 95% of the world's supply.  There are several primary reasons Kentucky remains the bourbon capital of the world today.  Kentucky was America's original West.  When early settlers moved West in search of more land and resources many settled in what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  These settlers of Scottish, German and Irish descent brought with them their stills and distilling knowledge.  They quickly discovered that Kentucky was the ideal place to make great whiskey.

..the beautiful bottles awaiting quality bourbon..

 

Smith-Corona Manual Portable Silent Super

Circa 1957

"one of the best portable typewriters produced by Smith-Corona"

The Silent Super was renowned for its smooth, fast action and sound-dampening insulation. It was a popular 5-Series line (which included the Sterling and Silent models) serving as the high-end, top-tier model known for its relatively quiet "silent" (muted), reliability, heavy-duty and stylish design. The Silent Super was known for its "pretty" or "shiny" aesthetics.

Smith-Corona is credited with some "retro curves and "art deco aesthetics" that were "designed by" people in the company's engineering department. The Silent Super is considered to have strong Art Deco and streamlined, industrial design influences. Key features such as it's "low-slung" curves, racing stripes on the hood and overall sleek, modern silhousette made it a popular example of the era's design. Therefore, the Silent Super is often associated with the late Art Deco or Art Moderne period with often a matte or crinkle-paint finish. 

While some earlier 1930s machines, like the Remington 5, are more commonly cited for classic "piano black" Art Deco styling, the Smith-Corona Silent Super represents a 1950s evolution of that trend.

The Smith-Corona Super Silent was primarily offered in five distinct pastel and standard colors starting around 1957.  The most notable colors were Alpine Blue, Seafoam Green, Coral Pink, Desert Sand and Sapphire Gray/Grey.  Early models typically featured green keys though later the colored models transitioned to white keys.  

The Silent Super is often celebrated as a masterpiece of manual portable design. It was a mid-sized, heavy duty "workhorse" designed to provide the full keyboard experience.  It was renowed for its speed.  It was designed by the company's engineering team in Groton, New York which included design engineer, Joseph P. Barkdoll and released in the post-WWII "baby boomer" era.

Barkdoll was a long-serving Smith-Corona design engineer.  He also had much to do with the brilliant line of typewriters introduced by Smith-Corona at Christmas 1949.  These included the Clipper, Sterling and the Silent-Super.  Barkdoll was born in Ohio April 1895 and began work for L. C Smith-Corona in the late 1920s and continued to patent designs for the company until 1969. During his 30 years of service to Smith-Corona, Barkdoll assigned at least 23 patents to the company.

The Smith-Corona Silent-Super is a front-strike, segment-shift typewriter with a light touh and fast action due to its "super speed escapement".  It features an "88-character full keyboard", including the number "1" key which was not always found on typewriters.  The keys were made of an early form of plastic called "Bakelite.*  The machine also had a ribbon selector of black, red and stencil settings, a margin release switch, a backspace button and a manual ribbon reverse switch.  The typewriter weighed 13 pounds.  It was 11.5 inches wide, 12.5 inches deep and 4.75 inches tall. 

*Bakelite was the early form of plastic developed in 1907 by Belgian chemist, Leo Baekeland in Yonkers, NY.  It was patented on December 7, 1909.  As the first fully synthetic plastic, it was used for durable, heat-resistant items like telephones, radios and jewelry often dubbed "the material of a thousand uses". The uses included .. typewriter keys.  Bakelite was commonly used for typewriter keys from the 1930s through the 1950s and typically had a solid, opaque appearance compared to earlier glass-covered keys. The keys were known for having a unique "wood-like" sound when tapped. 

Smith-Corona was founded in 1886 by the Smith brothers.  Smith-Corona became a dominant American typewriter manufacturer, famous for portable models.  Its origin from 1886 into the 1900s was founded by the Smith Premier Typewriter Company in Syracuse, New York by brothers Lyman Cornelius, Wilbert, Monroe and Hurlbut Smith.  In 1926, L.C. Smith & Brothers merged with the Corona Typewriter Company (founded in 1909) forming the L. C. Smith & Corona Typewriter Company and eventually becoming Smith-Corona. They ushered in the typewriter craze after WWII, when it produced the world's first portable manual typewriter. 

"no down payment .. convenient terms"

$121. 58 (incl. Fed. tax)

"To Smith-Corona with love .. best friend a busy girl ever had."

Natalie Wood

Sidenote:  In my research for this featured story I came upon the word QWERTY keyboard and now know what it is referring to in typewriter language. The QWERTY keyboard is the standard English-language typewriter and computer keyboard layout, named for the first six letters in the top-left letter row.  Patented in 1878, it was designed for early typewriters to reduce mechanical jams by separating frequently used letter combinations.  It prevented the mechanical arms of typewriters from colliding and locking up. Other regions used modified layouts, such as QWERTZ (German) or AZERTY (French). Despite the development of more efficient layouts, QWERTY remains the standard due to user familiarity and widespread adoption. 

I received an alpine blue Silent-Super as a young girl about to enter junior high school though I don't have it today.  That's the sad news, but the good news is I found one on eBay in alpine blue and can now say I am the proud owner of my second Silent-Super.