Auburn Postcard: Ross Chemical Building

Here we are with another historical postcard to explore. I picked one from Auburn University, since my family has many ties to that institution. As noted below, my grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr., did his military training on campus at the end of World War II. My parents Amos J. Wright, Jr., and Carolyn Shores Wright met and married while attending Auburn--or Alabama Polytechnic Institute, as it was formally known then--in the late 1940s. My wife Dianne and I met at Auburn--in the library! Daughter Becca graduated from Auburn as well. 

Note that "Samford" is misspelled as "Sanford" on the card. On the back of the card below we see the number "24052" which according to this history of Dexter Press postcards after 1950 makes it part of the 1950-51 batch of cards. That history includes some information about the press from the 1930s until it went out of business in the 1980. 

If this postcard indeed dates to ca. 1950, it was printed just before U.S. postage on postcards increased. From 1872 until 1951, postage was just one cent. The only exception was the two cent rate imposed in 1917-1918 during World War I. 

The post office approved this kind of "divided back" card on March 1, 1907. 

The building's namesake, Bennett Battle Ross [1864-1930] was a Tuskegee native who studied at Auburn, the University of Chicago, and universities in Germany. Ross then taught for six years each at Auburn and LSU before returning to Auburn as professor of general and agricultural chemistry and state chemist. He served as dean of agricultural sciences from 1911 until 1922 and dean of chemistry and pharmacy from 1922 until his death in 1930. In 1926 he published Chemistry in Agriculture. 

Ross Hall has 43,478 square feet of space and was built in 1930. In 1963, the School of Chemistry moved to Saunders Hall. In 1977 Ross was renovated for the use of mechanical, chemical and aerospace engineering. 

In all of the family photographs we have are some Dad took while at Auburn in 1945 and 1946. You can read my blog post about them here. This photo of the Ross Chemical Building was among them. 

Oh, and that building in the background of the postcard? Samford Hall? Here's my grandfather in 1918 standing near the spot where Ross Hall would later be built. Having been drafted into the army, he was in Auburn doing basic training. Luckily for him World War I ended before his unit was deployed, and he returned home to Gadsden. My blog post about all that is here.

Ross Chemical Building [now Ross Hall] in a 1948 postcard

Source: Alabama Postcards Collection via Auburn University Digital Library 

Bennett Battle Ross [25 Dec 1864-4 April 1930]

He is buried in Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Source: FindAGrave

Alabama River at Selma on a 1907 Postcard

Now we come to a post on one of my favorite topics, old postcards. I've written one piece on a number from my own collection, "Some Old Alabama Postcards (1)". I really must move on to part two one of these days. I've also incorporated postcards into a number of entries on this blog, such as the one on "Carnegie Libraries in Alabama."

I've found many interesting cards, such as the one below, at the Alabama Mosaic collection of digital resources from various libraries in the state. You can browse through more than 8200 here. 

So what's up with this postcard? First, it was issued by the Rotograph Company, founded in New York City in 1904. The company closed in 1911, but not before it had printed cards with numerous images from around the U.S. 

This card has a view of the Alabama River passing through Selma, with a bridge in the foreground constructed in 1885 by the Milwaukee Bridge and Iron Works. Another postcard below shows the draw bridge open for river traffic. This structure was replaced by the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1940.

The address side of the card tells us it was sent to Miss Zola Campbell of Darlington, Indiana. Via Ancestry.com and Find-A-Grave I located a Zola Campbell who died in 1960 aged 78 and is buried in Darlington. Various entries for her in the U.S. census track her through the years in Indiana; she never married. In 1950 she was living with another single woman two years younger on Main Street in Darlington and working as a library assistant. The 1940 census gives the same information, except she is a "Senior Library Clerk."

The postmark is unreadable, but the sender has conveniently written a date, August 21, 1907, on the front of the card along with his message. The one-cent Ben Franklin stamp used here was first issued in 1902. 

So what is our correspondent's message on this postcard? He [presumably] informs Zola that "Haven't seen or heard of any of our party so far" and puts those words in parentheses. Also set off that way is "Used to swim here" either under or near the bridge. Does that mean he grew up in Selma? Visited relatives there? 

Finally, at the bottom of this side of the card is "Now wont [sic] you be good? Been fishing up the State and am headed for Texas. Had great time. Write me. With love [what may be] Mom and Dad. If that last part is correct, the card may have been written by her father, Thomas M. Campbell, who was also born in Indiana. Perhaps the "our" is himself and his wife, Zola's mother.

Except for the swimming and fishing notations, much of this message is cryptic to us. What "party" is he expecting to see or hear from? Why does he ask Zola about being good? By 1907 she was 26 years old. What is the background of the note "Used to swim here"? 

Zola Campbell's obituary can be seen below. Since she lived in a small town and died in 1960, and had a sister that survived her, I wonder if anyone in Darlington today could offer some clues. 

I presume the "B5-PC 4.50 1907" notation in pencil was added by a dealer in such ephemera.

Ah, the mysteries of postcard messages more than a hundred years old....

Source: Troy University Digital Collections

Source: Indianapolis News 23 August 2023. The 1920 U.S. Census gives her occupation as milliner. 

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History

Something about Fairhope & Fort Morgan ca. 1950

The items in this post are taken from a scrapbook at mom's and probably come from the honeymoon they took after their wedding in Haleyville on September 10, 1950. Both were students at Auburn and would not have had either time or money for an extensive trip. Apparently they did make it to the Fairhope and Fort Morgan areas of Alabama. 

In that period Gulf Shores and Orange Beach were not much of a thing in tourism. Until completion of the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway in 1937,  Gulf Shores was largely inaccessible beach and wetlands. A poor road led to the first beach hotel,, opened in the early 1940's and the first post office in 1947. The town was incorporated in 1958. Orange Beach had a similar development. The first hotel appeared in 1923, a paved road came in 1947, electricity the following year and telephone service in 1958. Some vacation cottages were also built in both towns.

Gulf State Park opened in 1939 and by this time organized tourism efforts began to appear in printed pamphlets and Mobile newspaper articles. World War II brought civilian workers and military personnel to the coast from Mobile to Panama City. After the war the tourist trade picked up and continues today. An excellent history of this area is Harvey Jackson's 2012 book, The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera: An Insider's History of the Florida-Alabama Coast. 

Mom and dad apparently chose a more developed place, Fairhope. I would imagine dad's interest in history led them to Fort Morgan. By that time the Dixie Graves Parkway had been built out to Fort Morgan, so roads were pretty good to both places.

I have so far been unable to find any information on the businesses noted below where mom and dad must have eaten and stayed. More information on two individuals named here is at the end of the post. 

If you have information about these places, leave a note in the comments. 

I wonder what's on this spot today. I can find the intersection of South Church Street and Fairhope Avenue on Google Maps or Earth, but with no address I don't know which of the four corners was the one. 

A Robert K. Summersell turns up in Mobile in the 1930 U.S. Census working as a punchman; in the 1940 census he was a salesman. His Find-A-Grave entry is here.

Ras Crenshaw in the 1938 Murphy High School yearbook

Source: Ancestry.com 

According to his Society Security record, Captain Ras Crenshaw was Erastus Sylvester Crenshaw, Jr., born on October 11, 1920, in Bayou La Batre. He died on August 30, 1993.

From a "Welcome to Gulf Shores, Alabama" postcard packet ca. 1960

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History Digital Collecitons

Some Old Alabama Postcards (1)

Over the years I've collected Alabama postcards and want to share a few in this post. I've gathered together some old ones that were actually mailed and have scanned both sides. I have some comments below. I think several of these cards were purchased at Ackley's Rocks in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The shop features mostly minerals, crystals, etc., but has a section devoted to stamps, postcards and such. 

In a future post I'll look at some of the unused postcards in my collection.

According to Wikipedia, the first postcard was sent in 1840 in England. Collecting and studying postcards is called deltiology.

You can see many more old Alabama postcards at AU's Alabama Postcard Collection and UA's Historic Postcards of Alabama. 

This card postmarked 1943 [1948?] features Mr. Vulcan himself and a simple message to Mrs. Carter in Georgia. I wonder where Fizzy or Fuzzy was standing when he [she?] wrote his message--a drugstore, perhaps? 

The card was made by the E.C. Kropp Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You can see a postcard of the company's plant here. Founded in 1898, the firm operated under the Kropp name until sold in 1956. Several other cards below are also products of the company. 

That George Washington one cent stamp was first issued in 1938. 

This "Phototint card made only by Detroit Publishing Co." is declared along the left margin of the message side. The card features Old Shell Road in Mobile and is copyrighted 1906. The card was mailed at 4:30 P.M. on September 1, but the last two digits of the year didn't print very well; it may be 1928. 

The author of the message told mother in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, of a safe arrival in Mobile and plans to leave the next morning. "The author notes "It [sic] pretty hot over here." The one cent Benjamin Franklin stamp was first issued in 1927. 

This one is another E.C. Kropp card postmarked on January 3, 1940 at 8:30 P.M. and mailed with one of those same one-cent George Washington stamps. The author of the message declares "Birmingham is a very pretty city."

The Masonic temple pictured was torn down in September 1970 and used as a parking lot until the construction of the AmSouth-Harbert Plaza. The theatre had opened in 1925 as part of the Loew's chain and seated 3100. Vaudeville, plays and films appeared there. Actors such as Bela Lugosi and Tallulah Bankhead performed on the stage.

The town of Lanett was first known as Bluffton, but the name was changed after the Lanett Cotton Mills opened in 1894. The town has had a long relationship with West Point across the Georgia line. Mill owners Lafayette Lanier and Thomas Bennett developed the entire area in the late nineteenth century, providing employment to many people. The name "Lanett" was created from their last names. By 2009 the last cotton mill in Lanett had closed.  

The anonymous author of the note on this card was obviously close to the married couple in Nebraska and a busy person as well. The date on the postmark from the West Point post office appears to be April 1948. The author seems proud of that 1946 Chevy--wonder what model it was. That one-cent George Washington stamp makes another appearance.

Running up the middle of the card is the designation "Genuine Curteich". Curt Teich was a German immigrant who opened his business in 1898 in Chicago. The company became the largest manufacturer of postcards in the world and operated until 1978, four years after his death. 

This building opened in late 1939 as the Jefferson-Hillman Hospital; I have explored its history and place at the UAB School of Medicine in a couple of previous blog posts here and here. 

The original version of The Price is Right game show ran from 1956 until 1965, first on NBC-TV and for the final couple of years on ABC-TV. Often featured was a "Showcase" of multiple prizes in which home viewers were invited to submit bids on a postcard. This card must be one of those bids. I wonder if Miss Parrish won.

This card is another one from the Curt-Teich company. This particular four-cent Abraham Lincoln stamp was first issued in 1954. The card was apparently distributed at least locally by the Moore News Company of Birmingham.

This card features St. Vincent's, one of the "finest and best equipped" of Birmingham's "ten excellent hospitals" circa 1942. There is no stamp or postmark; we can assume the card was never mailed. I wonder if Celia was the sender or intended recipient?

The Boston company of Tichnor Brothers, Inc., produced this card. 

A 1908 photograph and another postcard of St. Vincent's can be seen in one of my earlier blog posts here.

This card was mailed by someone just passing through Alabama on their way to Florida. Apparently the recipient's parents lived in Birmingham. The "Bankhead" mentioned is the Bankhead Hotel [now the Bankhead Towers] which opened with 350 rooms in 1926. The hotel was named after Senator John H. Bankhead, Tallulah Bankhead's grandfather. 

This E.C. Kropp card has that one-cent George Washington stamp and was postmarked at 12 noon on December 13, 1947. As the card notes about the Birmingham-Southern College Library, it "contains many volumes of interesting reading material and is greatly used by the students."

Valley Elementary School in Pelham on a Postcard

Recently I was going through my Alabama postcard collection and came across the one below. Both of our children attended Valley, and I remember walking under that front entrance canopy many times. 

The school operated from 1964 until 2015. Pelham has created its own school system, built a new elementary school and no longer needs this one. Apparently the city will allow a developer to create an "entertainment destination" there.  

Dr. Norma Rogers became principal in the early 1970's and served until 1991 when she became Superintendent of Shelby County Schools. The address now is 310 Opportunity Drive. Directory assistance informs me that phone number has been disconnected.

At some point during either our son's or daughter's time at Valley this key chain was given out. My daughter entered Riverchase Middle School in the 1999-2000 school year, so the key chains were distributed before then. Ditto on the button and bumper sticker below.