Alabama Postcards: Motels (1)

I have a sizeable and growing Alabama postcard collection, and this post highlights six that feature  motels. I have many others on that topic, as well as hospitals, libraries, etc, to use for future postings. Postcards can be fascinating links to specific times, places and the minutia of life, even more so when they were actually mailed and include a message. 

I've already written a number of pieces about specific postcards and used cards as illustrations in many other posts. Some specific ones include:  

Ross Chemical Building, Auburn 

Wetumpka Penitentiary 

Redmont Hotel, Birmingham  

Jefferson Hospital, Birmingham 

Mentone Springs Hotel 

State of Alabama

Hotel Reich, Gadsden

Electrik Maid Bake Shop & Restaurant, Birmingham

Auburn Serum Plant

Forrest Cemetery Chapel, Gadsden

Whew, more than I thought! 

Postcards have an interesting history which you can read about on Wikipedia and the Library of Congress web site. Dating postcards is discussed on this Smithsonian page. An entry about the history and evolution of motels can be found on Wikipedia. 

Below are two different cards for the Witt Motel in Oneonta, and one each for Bob's Court in Ariton, Town Motel in Birmingham, the Pine Lake Motel south of Montgomery and the Colonial Tourist Court in Troy. More details are between the images. 

On the back of this first card we learn that the owner at the time was Joseph Schoolfield Wittmeier, Sr. [1874-1961] a physician who's Find-A-Grave entry tells us was also very active in civic activities in Oneonta and Blount County. He and his wife Mamie are both buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Oneonta.

The "triple A" symbol indicates the motel was approved by the American Automobile Association. The facility is built of native sandstone and each room has a private tiled bath, air conditioning, carpet, etc. A restaurant operates next door. The location is the junction of U.S. 231 and Alabama state highways 25 and 32 in Oneonta. 

This card was mailed from Oneonta on February 19, 1954, from a woman to her sister in Illinois. On their way to Florida, "all 4 of us" spent the night here 500 miles from home. Sister Francis was apparently suffering from a cold. The stamp featuring President John Adams was issued in 1938. The MWM Company [Mid West Map Company] of Aurora, Missouri, issued many cards. 

You can see a matchbook cover advertising the motel on Pinterest. I found little else about the facility, except a mention on Facebook that it opened in the 1940s and closed "decades later". The site has since been redeveloped.

The handwritten correction on the back of this second Witt Motel card includes a Zip Code, which was  not introduced by the U.S. Post Office until 1963. Presumably the couples indicated as owners here took over after Dr. Wittmeier's death. The phone number indicates a more modern system. Note that "television" has been added to the list of room amenities, and the restaurant is still next door, along with the AAA seal of approval. 

The owners originally listed on this card are John T. Dransfield [1903-1972) and his wife Beulah [1910-1976], both also buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Oneonta. The "H.J. Malwitz" may be Henry J. Malwitz 1897-1981], buried in Birmingham along with his wife Vesta.

Bob's Court was a small 10-unit motel on US 231 in Ariton. The facility had a guest lounge and a restaurant "in connection" which I guess meant next door. Is the motel in a pecan grove? Note that old, old school phone number: 153R. 

Owners Robert Henry Dean [1897-2001] and his wife Lou [1900-1995] are both buried in the Ariton Cemetery. Ariton is in Dale County and the birthplace of blues singer Big Mama Thornton. 

This card was produced by one of the prominent postcard companies, E.C. Kropp of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which operated from 1907 to 1956. This particular card is stamped "cabinet sample" presumably at the card company. The other note would seem to indicate a thousand copies printed/available on February 10, 1953. I'm not sure what the other word is following that date. 

 

The Town Motel was on U.S. Highway 11, one mile west of downtown Birmingham. The motel provided soundproof rooms, carpet and other amenities. This card indicates another old school phone number, 53-9293. Owners  Charles D. [1910-1980] and Jewel [1920-2000] Mitchell are listed in the 1953 Birmingham City Directory as operating the Town Motel. 

This card is also the E.C. Kropp Company. This motel and its newer sign can be seen near the end of this video on Facebook. Other photos of that sign are on Wikimedia Commons and Flickr. The motel made the news in 2021. 

Here's another facility with AAA approval. The Pine Lake was 12 miles south of Montgomery at the junction of U.S. Highways 82 and 231. "Free TV in every room" and "Saxon's Delicious Candy and Restaurant" next door. "Eat and Sleep with Us." Phone AM 2-6088. 

This postcard was addressed to a couple in Lakeland, Florida, but apparently never mailed unless an envelope was used. The author of the note includes a date, May 16, 1966, as the date left for Winfield, Missouri. 

The sign can be seen in a night photo on Facebook from 2021. This card was also issued by the Midwest Map Company. 

Colonial Tourist Court was located on U.S 231 South in Troy. The facility boasted air conditioning and "panel ray heat." I found nothing else about this facility. Interestingly the description is on the front of the card and not the back. The card looks pretty old, doesn't it?

The Artvue Postcard Company operated in New York City from 1948 until 1963. I did not find anything else online except postcards. 

Birmingham Postcard: Jefferson Hospital

Here we have yet another entry in a series devoted to postcards from my collection. I have many that are unused, but the ones actually mailed are double snapshots of history both for the card itself and the message written on it. 

The postmark on this card is dated August 20, 1943. The front shows Jefferson Hospital in Birmingham, constructed in 1940 with the help of New Deal loans and a grant. The hospital opened in February 1941 with 575 beds, 11 operating rooms, maternity wards and an all-electric kitchen. For two years during World War II the 10th and 11th floors of Jefferson Hospital housed a secret training facility for officers and enlisted men of various armed forces units.

The facility became a center of the new Medical College of Alabama that welcomed the first students in September 1945. Renamed Jefferson Tower in 1979, the building remains a landmark on the giant University of Alabama at Birmingham campus. 

The card was printed by the Merchants Cigar and Candy Company in Birmingham. Other city cards from the company that I spotted on eBay and at Alabama Mosaic include Lake Purdy Dam, Alabama Power Company building, a rock garden pool, looking east on 20th Street at night and the Sloss-Sheffield furnace. The company seems to have operated from about 1937 until 1946, although I did not find them under either "Cigars" or "Candy" in the 1945 Birmingham Yellow Pages directory.

So what does the message side of the card tell us? The sender is Charles Troutman, a soldier stationed at Camp Sibert, a World War II chemical weapons training facility that sprawled over 36,000 acres in Etowah and St. Clair counties. The facility opened in 1942 and was named after Major General William Sibert, the first head of the Army's Chemical Warfare Service and a Gadsden native. 

Troutman is writing to his father, Charles H. Troutman, Sr., in Flagstaff, Arizona. He notes that he was up that day at 4am and began shooting practice at 6. He shot a 161 which he declared "was good but could have been better." The previous night had been cool but today was a "scorcher" although the air was "unusually dry". Troutman mentions "Kodachrome", the Eastman Kodak film introduced in 1935. Not sure what he means by "OCS" unless it refers to the 35mm slide film Kodak put on the market in 1936. At any rate, "some were very good."

Another question concerns the "OTB 01039771" at the top of the card. Does the abbreviation stand for "Operations Training Branch"?

On August 10 Charles had written his mother, using a postcard that showed climbers on Mount Washington, New Hampshire. "Getting cooler", he said. "Have a long training film tonight. Sure is tiresome here. Everyone is on edge."

As the historical marker below notes, Camp Sibert was activated on December 25, 1942, and deactivated almost exactly three years later on December 31, 1945. The camp could hold about 30,000 troops, and almost half of all the U.S.'s World War II CWS soldiers trained there. You can read more about Camp Sibert here and here. Many photos taken at Camp Sibert can be found on Alabama Mosaic. 

In 2017 Lindsey Rebekah Wilson wrote a thesis at Jacksonville State University, "Camp Sibert: Inside the Training Camp and its Significance to the Chemical Warfare Service". 

Charles H. Troutman, Jr. [1914-1990] during World War II

Found at Ancestry.com

Source: Historical Marker Database

Entrance to Camp Sibert ca. 1943

Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History

State of Alabama Postcard

As a Wikipedia article tells us, Alabama has 41 official state symbols. The postcard below only had room for six: the state flag, adopted in 1923; the state flower, the camellia, in 1959; the state bird, the yellowhammer, in 1933; the state tree, the long leaf pine, listed in Wikipedia as the Southern longleaf pine, 1997; coat of arms, 1939; state fish, the Atlantic tarpon, 1955. As you'll see on Wikipedia's inventory, the state now has a freshwater fish symbol, a horse, a game bird, a nut, a reptile and many others added since this postcard was issued.

The back of the card tells us that Alabama's nicknames are Cotton State and the Heart of Dixie, but there apparently is no formal nickname for the state. 

So, when was the card printed? In the middle of the back we read "Alabama Post Card Co." in Bessemer and a ZIP Code. Use of those U.S. Postal Service codes began on July 1, 1963, so this card was printed after that date. The company also issued a USS Alabama card with the same ZIP code. Another card from the company featured Holy Family Hospital in Birmingham and gave an address of 111 Livingston Court, but no ZIP. I also found a card from the company with a launch of a Jupiter-C rocket at Redstone Arsenal probably from the "late 1950s" according to the dealer. Back of the card is not shown.  

I checked some telephone white and yellow pages for Bessemer in the first half of the 1960s and did not find the company listed, so I have no idea how long they operated. A quick Google search only turned up the three other cards mentioned. 

Source: Troy University Libraries Digital Collections

Gadsden Postcard: Forrest Cemetery Chapel

This postcard brings back some memories. My paternal grandparents, Amos J. and Rosa Mae Wright are buried in Forrest Cemetery, as well as Beulah Vee Wright, my dad's older sister I never met. In the late 1950s and early 1960s during the summers I would get to visit my grandparents in Gadsden for a couple of weeks. Amos was still working as yard foreman for L&N Railroad, so Rosa Mae would often take me to do things during the day before we picked him up at the railyard after work. One of those trips would be a visit to Forrest Cemetery to see Beulah Vee's grave. Since those days my grandparents have died and been buried beside their daughter. You can see gravestone photos below.

The first burial in Forrest Cemetery was Sallie Law Woodliff, a 1.5 year old child. She was the daughter of A.L. Woodliff who had selected the site and began clearing it with the help of his three sons. She died 13 Jul 1872. The chapel was built 1935-36 by the Works Progress Administration from sandstone quarried on Lookout Mountain. That chapel was named the Ruth R. Cross Memorial Chapel in 1960 after a woman who had devoted much time to the cemetery's care. Forrest Cemetery includes 40 acres and is located on South 15th Street in Gadsden.

The card with its "Tichnor Quality View" was published by the Franklin News Agency. Between July 1, 1919 and January 1, 1952, the postage rate for a U.S. postcard was a penny. Tichnor Brothers, Inc., of Boston operated from 1908 until 1987 and was a major publisher of postcards. I was unable to find anything on Franklin and am unsure what their role was. 

A brief history of the modern postcard at the Library of Congress site can be found here.

The rear of the chapel is visible in the distance in this photo.

We have other relatives buried in this cemetery. For instance, two of Rosa Mae's sisters, Stella Vinyard and Maude Wright, are interred there. 

Amos J. and Rosa Mae Wright, probably around the time of their wedding on 31 October 1915. 

Beulah V. Wright

Alfred Spielberg operated a photography studio in Gadsden. According to records at Ancestry.com, he died in 1967. 

Source: Find-A-Grave 

Alabama Postcard: Mentone Springs Hotel

Mentone is a small town in DeKalb County in the northeastern part of the state. Mineral springs in the area led to its development in the 1880s as a resort, and it later became a location for summer camps for young people. Mentone is atop Lookout Mountain at an elevation of more than 1700 feet, and naturally cooler in the summer.

The Mentone Springs Hotel opened in 1884 to serve the numerous tourists coming to the area. The hotel thrived until the 1920s, but then began a decline that lasted into the 21st century. The hotel was purchased in 2010 by two couples who began restoration efforts. Unfortunately, the facility burned to the ground in March 2014. 

James F. Sulzby, Jr.'s classic Historic Alabama Hotels and Resorts [1960, pp 175-179] has a chapter on Mentone and the Springs Hotel. The hotel was originally built in 1884 by Dr. Frank Caldwell of Pennsylvania. The two-story frame structure had 57 rooms with hot and cold water. Caldwell sold the property in 1896, and new owner Charles Loring further developed the popular facility, which was open from June 1 until October 1 each year. 

New owners in 1914 added an annex with 24 rooms, each having a private bath. Ownership changed again in 1918 and once more in 1920, when a group of Baptists purchased it for the denomination's summer activities. That group added a 44-room dormitory, an auditorium for 600 and six classrooms. 

The final Baptist summer was in 1932, as the Great Depression deepened. After that, a series of owners had little success, and the hotel sat unused some years. The 2010 purchasers seemed to resurrect the hotel, but the electrical fire ended its history forever. 

This postcard comes from my collection. It has no date, but 1981 is mentioned in the text on the reverse side, so it was issued sometime after that. The "family from Atlanta" may be one of the unsuccessful efforts at restoration that took place over the years. 

The hotel's zombie web site is still available. The hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and the Wikipedia article has links to the nomination form for the National Register. That document in PDF format gives extensive details about the history. 

Below the postcard are two more images about the hotel with links to more newspaper articles about it and the fire. 

You can read about the supposed visit of Welsh Prince Madoc to the Mentone area in 1170 here. 

Source: Chattanooga Free Press 3 March 2014

Source: Chattanooga Free Press 28 July 2014

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