Looking for Bears

These time saver cards can be pretty amusing.  The first one is from Sayner, Wisconsin, but appears to have been sent from Boulder Junction, Wisconsin.

The card was sent to Mrs. Jennie Weeks in Colfax, Illinois from her niece Ruth. The message reads:

Dear Aunt Jennie

The 30th we went out to look for bears. But we did not see a bear. The 28th we went to a lumber camp for dinner. love Ruth

Here's another time saver card, although this one doesn't have any check marks and was never sent.

Wingspread

Lazy blogger that I am, I have enlisted my resident architect to provide us with text for this post. He is after all the expert. We are just back from a trip to Wisconsin where we visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Wingspread and a number of other Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

Here's Wingspread from above. We were given an in-depth private tour of Wingspread and left to wander around and take pictures for as long as we wanted.

Here's what the architect who steals my covers has to say about it:

Frank Lloyd Wright was definitely flying high in 1937 when he designed Wingspread, the +/- 14,000 SF home for Herbert Johnson, president of S.C. Johnson & Son.  Only a few years earlier, Wright was largely forgotten by the architecture world - some even thought he had died - his commissions having dried up after the 1915-1923 Imperial Hotel project (see earlier post), the result of personal scandals and society’s tastemakers rejecting the Prairie Style that Wright had championed starting in 1893.

One project had given life to the second great phase of Wright’s career, Fallingwater, the iconic 1935 country house that catapulted him to the cover of Life magazine and world-wide fame.  Over the next two years, he would create the first Usonian house (the Jacob’s residence), his own incredible desert home and studio at Taliesin West, and the stunning headquarters for Johnson Wax in Racine, Wisconsin.  The next 20 years were the most prolific period of his career, with more than 200 of Wright’s designs constructed.

During the construction of the headquarters, Johnson hired Wright to design him a new home on a large tract of land north of Racine.  A ‘zoned’ plan, four wings containing different private functions- master suite, children’s bedrooms, guest bedrooms/garage, and kitchen/service- extend into the landscape from a central 3-story great hall with living, dining, library and music areas spiraling around a chimney mass with five fireplaces.   

Wingspread - Great Hall

Wingspread - Great Hall

While the name Wingspread was derived from this layout, the glass cupola of the house also provided a location for the Johnson children to watch their father do fly-bys piloting his private plane. 

View from cupola

Spiral stairs to cupola

Many of Wright’s projects had wing-like roof or balcony projections seeming to defy gravity, but The Spring Green restaurant actually used steel trusses from the flight deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier to allow the building to span a small ravine.  It is currently used as the visitor’s center for Wright’s original Wisconsin home, Taliesin, located nearby.    

Spring Green

Fly on over to Sepia Saturday to look at more views on flight.

National Library Week

Celebrate National Library Week (April 8-14th) by visiting your local library.
If you live in Rome, New York, you can go to the Jervis Library, built in 1895.

If you live in Norwich, New York you can go to the Guernsey Memorial Library, although the building shown here was demolished in the 1967. The new library looks pretty nice too.

You can also go visit the mammoth Milwaukee Library.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order. I think they're all clear enough to read as is.

 The first card was sent to Miss Persis Davis in Los Angeles. The second one was sent to Alma Tarbox in Harford Mills, new York. I have quite a few cards to and from the Tarbox family.

The last one was sent to Mr. C.P. Robb in Winona, Minnesota.

Your Next Vacation

Once again I am offering my assistance in planning your next vacation. I have selected some lovely motels for you as a starting point. The Motel Troy in Troy, Alabama is nice and it has some cute fake deer out front.

If you'd like to explore the Land of Lincoln, I suggest the Southern View Motel in Springfield, Illinois. I'm not sure what you'll see in that southern view, but there's plenty of parking.

As you head up north from Illinois, you may want to stay at Krueger's Motel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The motel manager, Freddy Krueger, seems very outgoing and energetic.

As you can see by the back of the first card, there are deals to be had. The card wasn't even mailed. I think it was just a note to remind the person what a good deal they got.

Stayed here Wed. nite July 25th 1962. $12 for the 6 of us. Supposed to be a 20 room.

Here are the backs of the other two cards:

Tram Tuesday - Racine, Wisonsin

Some of you may remember that before I got lazy and stopped posting on weekends, I used to feature streetcar postcards every Sunday. I haven't done that in awhile, but I thought I would experiment with doing it on Tuesday instead. I may not do it every week, but I'll try to do at least a few a month.

Racine, a city of about 82,000 is located on Lake Michigan and has not had a streetcar since before World War II. That streetcar system ran from 1892 until 1940. Like many cities however, Racine has looked at bringing the streetcar back. Plans for a two-mile streetcar loop are included in the 2005 Racine Downtown Plan. It shows the proposed streetcar traveling on State, Main, 6th, and Marquette streets. As far as I can tell there is no target date though, and it's not there yet.

Here's the back of the card, sent to Gladys Knauf in Akron, Ohio in 1921 (?)

The message reads:

Dear Glad

We are working at this place today. Best to all. C +M

See Rialto theatre this is where we are today. with star above it.

The message makes me think that C + M were Vaudeville entertainers, performing at the Rialto.

Streetcar Sunday - Milwaukee, WI

Not much traffic other than the streetcars in this early photo of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Milwaukee had electric streetcars starting in 1890. They operated until 1958. Milwaukee also had interurbans that connected the city with Kenosha, East Troy/Burlington, Watertown, and Sheboygan. The interurban trains had all been replaced with buses by 1947.

This card dates from about 1907. If you're specifically interested in streetcars of Wisconsin, you should check out the Transport Co. Web Station website.