Weird Postcards

By no means boring, but all a little strange...

Mexicali

The Owl Bar (El Tecolote) in Baja California, Mexico, was a popular destination for U.S. residents even before Prohibition. The Owl featured a casino, dance hall, a brothel, and of course lots of alcohol. Cocaine and opium were also commonly available. Mexicali was one of a number of the centers for vice tourism just across the Mexican border from the United States. Even before Prohibition, efforts to abate prostitution in California sent some of the red-light business across the border.

Not surprisingly, many of the most interesting stories relate to the brothel and its 104 rooms. Andrew Grant Wood wrote about Mexicali and El Tecolote/ The Owl in his book, On the Border: Society and Culture between the United States and Mexico. According to Wood, the prostitutes represented a variety of ethnicities and races, but the customers were segregated by race. There was a section for white customers and a separate section for non-white customers. It would also appear that once the prostitutes were there, they were not free to leave. A number of newspapers in the United States covered the story of the 1920 fire that ravaged The Owl and sent scantily-clad prostitutes fleeing from the building. The prostitutes dispersed after that.

A federal mandate forced the closure of The Owl in 1922, however an $80,000 donation to Mexican General Rodriguez allowed for an extension of their gambling permits, under the new name, The ABW Club. The operation closed completely in 1936.

The card below shows two of Mexicali's breweries. You can read more about Cerveceria de Mexicali on The Real Tijuana Blog and about Cervezeria Azteca, which moved to the United States and became Aztec Brewing.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

Kashima Maru

The S.S. Kashima Maru was a Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) trans-Pacific passenger liner. This photo is from around 1920. NYK produced many very beautiful ship postcards.

In World War II, the Kashima Maru, then being used as a transport ship, was torpedoed and sunk by the USS Bonefish in 1943.

P.S. This post was being inundated with spam comments for some reason, so I have closed it to new comments. My apologies.

Wiggins Old Tavern

Wiggins Old Tavern is located in the Hotel Northampton in Northampton, Massachusetts.  Although I have never had the opportunity to eat here, the Dalai Lama did, as did Richard Nixon, David Bowie, and Eleanor Roosevelt.  The hotel and tavern are still open if you think you might want to visit.

U.S. Battleship Oregon

The USS Oregon was built in San Francisco and launched in 1893. I have delayed this post for a long time because I intended to go down to Tom McCall Waterfront Park here in Portland and take a photo of the mast, which is on display there as a memorial. Somehow I have never gotten around to doing it, but there's a perfectly good photo on Wikipedia anyway.

Here' s the card.

And here's the Wikipedia photo of the mast as it looks today.

Source: Wikipedia

The card was sent by D.A. Westcott of Victoria, B.C. to Miss Kate Goff of Waterford, Pennsylvania. The choice of a battleship postcard seems to be intentional. Here's the back of the card with its wonderful message.

Victoria, B.C. Canada

Kate - Take care of yourself. Don't let any body walk on you.

D.A. Westcott

May 23, 1908.

Boring Postcards II

You probably had an event-filled and exciting weekend, so this is a perfect opportunity to relax with some very boring postcards. If you're going to collect boring postcards, be sure to include at least a few aerial views of parking lots.

You might also want to include some dark caves with stalactites.

And a few puzzling landscapes...

Two Girls

These are obviously the same girls photographed over a span of years. The only indication as to who they might be is some scrawled writing on the back of one of the pictures. It looks like it might be: Jenecal Belarag, but that may be a note that has nothing to do with the identity of the girls.

In the second photo they have reversed places, but the pose is otherwise very similar.

In the third photo they have switched places again and have both grown their hair long.

The stamp boxes on the backs of the cards provide a fairly broad range of the date, with the first and the third card printed between 1910 and 1930. Cards like the second one were also printed through the 1920s.

Here are the backs in the same order.

Sailing To Fiji

For a change of pace, this is not a postcard. Instead, it a 9" by 12" menu from the Matson Lines' S.S. Lurline, with the front cover painted by Louis Macouillard.  That would have been a fun adventure.

Here are the choices you would have had for dinner on Tuesday, March 29, 1960. In many ways, this seems like an adventurous menu for 1960, but there are also the classic standbys such as Sanka, Rye-Krisp, and chilled hearts of celery.

The wine list lacks the descriptive language we use today - nothing about forward fruit, hints of tobacco, vanilla etc.

Boring Postcards

Boring postcards need lovin' too.
In any case, it would be unfair of me to keep them in a box just to say Blech! every time I see them, without sharing them so you can say Blech! too. And I guarantee that there will be some people who think these cards are not boring at all.

Postcards with deer on them nearly always fit in the boring category, more so if you can't even see the deer. This one adds an element of mystery though. In looking for the deer I imagine I also see mountain lions and other animals, including a bear stuck in the snow and waving for help.

And then there are the aerial views of  bleak landscapes. I wonder if colleges attracted any students by printing cards like this one.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order. The first one is surprisingly nice.

Tram Tuesday - Hamburg, Germany

This card is so rich with detail, good views of the trams, but also people going about their business, a coffee-roasting business, an auto-mat cafe, and a sign for Union Castle Mail Steamship Company.

Hamburg had a tram system from 1866 until 1978. Horse-drawn trams were in operation until 1922, running alongside steam-powered from 1878 until 1897 when electric-powered trams were introduced. There has been some discussion about re-introducing streetcars to Hamburg, but there are no plans right now.

Here's the back of the card.

Giant Grapes and 9 Little Pigs

One of the best things about the exaggeration cards is that they often have interesting messages on the back.

The message, to Mrs. Emma Trappe in Portland, Oregon, reads:

Sherwood, Ore

July 26, 1910

Dear Sister. We are all well now Theodor was sick for a cupple of Days last week with Tonsilitis but is all right now. I guess Art and I will come down Sat. Evenin. Theo doesn't want to come. We have 9 little pigs a week old. best regards to all. from your Loving Sister

Clara Rupprecht

Box 107 R.F.D. 4

Clara Rupprecht was born in 1869 and died in 1942. She is buried beside her husband in the St. Paul Lutheran Cemetery in Sherwood, Oregon. I was unable to find Emma and Clara's maiden name in a quick search of records.

Me and Billy on Vacation

Uh-oh!
Please tell me they didn't let these two check in together.

Clyde Steamship Lines and S.O.S.

When the S.S. Arapahoe broke her tail shaft off the North Carolina Coast in 1909, the focus of the New York Times news story was not so much the damage done to the ship, but the manner in which the ship signaled she was in distress. The wireless operator on board sent out an S.O.S signal. Although that would not seem remarkable today, it was then, because the recognized signal for help had been C.Q.D., (a general signal followed by D for Distress.)  It did not stand for Come Quick Danger, just as S.O.S. did not stand for Save Our Souls or Save Our Ship, but it is a convenient way to remember them anyway. The Arapahoe's call for help was the first recorded use of the S.O.S. signal in the United States.

The use of S.O.S. was adopted by the International Wire Congress in Berlin in 1906, but it took awhile for it to be widely adopted. In 1912, the Titanic initially sent C.Q.D. messages before interspersing them with S.O.S. signals.

Here is a card showing another Clyde Line Steamer. Apparently the Mohawk, Cherokee, and Seminole, all built in 1925-26, looked the same, so this card could be any one of them. Björn Larsson's website, Maritime Timetables Images, shows some great interior views too and reports that:

The Mohawk was sunk in 1935 following a collision with a freighter off New Jersey,
while the Cherokee, serving as a troop transport, was torpedoed and sunk in 1942.
Both the Seminole and Algonquin were hospital ships during WW2 and survived to be scrapped during the 1950s. 

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

The second card was sent to Mrs. J.J. Burwell of Lumberton, New Jersey in 1929 from Jacksonville, Florida. The message reads:

Does this look like the vessel on which we took our trip?

John

Think Possibly I may get back by Friday eve next.

A Toast

Tram Tuesday - Tacoma Washington

Be sure to check out the previous Tacoma Streetcar Sunday post.

Today's Tacoma postcard shows a streetcar in front of the Hotel Donnelly and Grand Theatre, a building that was demolished in 1925. A sign on the front of the building advertises oysters.

Maye sent this card to her mother, Mrs. J.C. Browne of Grants Pass, Oregon in 1908, with amessage that reads:

Dear Mother

We leave for Seattle this eve will be there about a week. write me Am having a dandy good time

lovingly Maye

It all looks the same. I don't like Tacoma.