Thursday, June 6, 2013

Old Yellowstone District Signs, Casper Wyoming








Casper Wyoming has been working for some time on developing its Old Yellowstone District, so called because the Old Yellowstone Highway runs through it. This road is no longer the highway, and has not been for quite some time, although it was as recently as the early 1970s, and I can remember traveling on it in my parents cars.

The city has commissioned these signs, which have a 1930s feel to them, seeking to promote business. leisure and residence in the district.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Lex Anteinternet: Railhead: Arminto Wyoming

Lex Anteinternet: Railhead: Arminto Wyoming:

This thread includes, through the generosity of Ray Galutia, the only photographs on the web of Arminto Wyoming during the height of its existence, in the 1940s.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Basin Wyoming Post Office


This is a bit outside of our unusual topic here (which admittedly has been expanding) but this is an unusually nice and classic small town U. S. Post Office.  This is the very classically styled Post Office in Basin, Wyoming, which is right next to the classically styled Big Horn County Courthouse.

That such an impressive, albeit small, structure was built shows how viable and important these small towns were.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Sidewalk Clock, Casper Wyoming



The March 10 entry on Today In Wyoming's History, which featured a sidewalk clock from outside of Wyoming, reminded me of this one, in Casper.

This is something that isn't as common as it once was, a sidewalk clock.  Once a fairly common, and pretty neat, feature of the downtown landscape, I don't know that anyone puts them up any more.  If they do, it's not frequently.

This particular one has been in place for decades.  So much so, in fact, that I hardly take notice of it, even though its a prominent feature on the sidewalk. This is the Ayres Jewelry Store sidewalk clock which, as can be seen, is in the shape of a large diamond ring.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Black Cat Books, Greybull Wyoming


This doesnt' really fit our normal topic category here, but interesting advertisement theme nonetheless.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Firehouse Brewing Company, Rapid City, South Dakota



Firehouse Brew Pub in Rapid City, South Dakota, converted from a downtown fire station.

Downtown Rapid City


This Iphone photo was originally intended to show the odd seen of a dance class at work in the second story of the building across the street, but that taxed the ability of the Iphone camera.  Therefore, what it shows instead is part of the well preserved downtown of Rapid City.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Lex Anteinternet: What people read

Lex Anteinternet: What people read: We've had this blog up for a couple of years now, with the first posts being in 2009 . There were none in 2010, but we really took off in p...

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Main Street, Lewistown Montana



These photographs weren't actually taken with publication here in mind, but after looking at it I noticed the the painted sign on the left side of the frames.

Lewistown is a beautiful small city, the county seat of its county, in northern Montana.  Surrounded by mountains, it is extraordinarily well preserved for a northern Plains/Rocky Mountain town.  A large number of early 20th Century buildings are intact, well preserved, and in use.

Feed store, Lewistown Montana


There's actually more than one painted brick building in this photograph of trackside Lewistown Montana, but the photo was taken very early in the morning, and none of the signs are really legible.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Holscher's Hub: Calendar Query

Holscher's Hub: Calendar Query: Are any of the denizens here finding any neat agriculture, nature, equine or history related calendars in the offering for 2013? As per usu...

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Halls of Natrona County High School

When I attended NCHS, back in the misty dawn of time, there were no interior paintings in the building.  Now, to my surprise, there are.  When I first learned of this, I expressed surprise about it, and in turn my wife, who attended NCHS in years more recently than I, was surprised that I was surprised.  Indeed, she insisted that I must have missed them.  As it turns out, I did not miss them at all, the murals commenced in 1983, after I had left.

Anyhow, while this is somewhat outside the usual scope of this blog, they are interesting.

 Nicely executed mural of Civil War or Frontier Era solders near the JrROTC room at NCHS.  MKTH photo.

 Example of hall mural.  MKTH photo.

 NCHS hall mural which features the logo of the band House of Pain.  It must have been the year that the rap tune "Jump" came out  that this one was painted.

 One done by my brother in law, while he was there.

Another change.  Navy recruiters in the hall.  I don't recall recruiters coming on campus back when I was there.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Gamble Store, Casper Wyoming



This is the painted sign for the Gamble Store, in downtown Casper Wyoming.  This building is now occupied by other establishments.

Gambles was a department store. As the sign indicates, the stores offered a wide range of products, although as I don't ever recall this business operating here, and therefore don't know, I have to wonder how this range of products was offered in a relatively small retail space.  Anyhow, the Minnesota based company expanded from an initial store in that state in the late 1920s to being the 15th largest retailer in the United States by the end of the 1970s.  In the 1980s, it was so large that it attempted to take over Brooks Brothers.

Since that time, the company's fortunes declined.  A descendant company still exists, but it does not operate under the Gambles name as a storefront name.

Furniture Store, Casper Wyoming


Remnants of a furniture store sign, now on the side of the Kirkwood Oil and Gas building, in downtown Casper.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

McEwen and Central Feed, Lewistown Montana


Two buildings on the main street of Lewistown Montana.  I have no Idea what McEwen is.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Tripeny Building, Casper Wyoming


The building on the right, with the "Sanford's" sign, is the Tripeny Building. The Sanford's sign is covering the Tripeny name on the masonry, but it is there.  The tile work at the entry way, however, remains.


The Tripeny Building was built as an pharmacy, but the store was much more than that.  Still in operation when I was young, the store had a substantial jewelry counter and an old fashion soda fountain.  It was a neat place.  I can distinctly recall the juke box and a very old arcade game the store had in which the player attempted to shoot down bombers passing over a city.

After the death of the proprietor the store ceased operations and then became Giansanti's Pizzeria, a restaurant well remembered by Casperites of a certain age.  When Giansanti's ultimately closed, the location became the home of the Casper expression of Anthony's, a restaurant that had started in Jackson Wyoming (it can be seen, getting busted up, in the not so great movie Any Which Way But Loose).  Again, for Casperites, Anthony's was the Casper, not the Jackson, location, event  though they were both excellent.  The restaurant was always very popular and had a huge lunch crowd, but as with all restaurants, it too eventually closed.  Since that time, the building has been occupied by Sanford's, a regional restaurant chain that originated in Gillette with a restaurant called Humphrey's there, and which has expanded throughout the state.

Sanford's uses a style which involves featuring a lot of stuff in and outside of the restaurant in a manner that's clearly intended to recall the 1970s television show Sandford & Son.  For those who need a bit more of a clue, the menu titles provide it.  At this location it was involved in a bit of a spat with the city of Casper over an effort to convert its liquor license to a specialized cheaper variety intended only for restaurants, but the city gave it a bit of a bad time about that, resulting in the "$1 Pint" program, which must have been popular, as it continues on.  In spite of the big restaurant sign and the pint banner, observers can still pick up the details of the building if they look closely.

I'm not sure of this buildings age but I believe that it dates to the 1920s

Updated: Painted Bricks: Kistler Tent & Awning.

Recently updatated:  Painted Bricks: Kistler Tent & Awning..

Friday, June 15, 2012

Casper Power Box: Buildings of Interest.







This is an unusual city display, memorializing prominent buildings of Casper that were there in 1922.  The structure this is on is a power box.  Neat display.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Sinclair Station, Hudson Wyoming





This is the former Sinclair station in Hudson Wyoming. The building features a variety of fading painted signs, including one fairly clear Sinclair sign, and a second Sinclair sign which has either been painted over with another sign, or which painted over another sign.

The building also has a sign for Eli D. Bebout, who ran for Governor in Wyoming in 2002.  Hudson is a bit unusual in that brick signs are not only common, but political ones have been done within the last two decades.  One was this one for Eli D. Bebout, and another, across the street, is painted on the El Toro restaurant building for the late John P. Vinich.

Svilar's, Hudson Wyoming


 


This is the building housing the legendary Svilar's Restaurant in Hudson, Wyoming. Svilars is a first rate restaurant, and at one time the small town of Hudson housed Wyoming's two highest rated restaurants, this one, and another one owned by the same family which was located across the street.

This restaurant has been in business for many years and I don't know what this building was originally used for. Today it has a restaurant scene on one side.  On the other there's a remnant of a sign for a baseball game in Hudson, but when the game, or games, were played, I have no idea.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Guest Post #3. Dillon Montana


And one more set from our friend Sandy:


And two older ones from Dillon, Montana. Dillon is cattle country and the home of the U of M West, aggie- quite a different flavor than Missoula, U of M.  I haven't (yet) seen any yaks in this part of the state.

Guest Post #2: Thompson Falls, Montana



Some more photos sent by our friend, Sandy:


These are from Thompson Falls, Montana along Rt 200, which follows the Flat Head River to its confluence with the Clark Fork River and on to Lake Pend Oreille.

Guest Post #1: Oddfellow's Building, Colfax Washington




Our friend Sandy sent us these photos, and reports:


This is the Oddfellows building, from both sides, in Colfax, Washington on Rt 195, about an hour south of Spokane, in the heart of wheat country . As you can see there are several generations of paintings here. Alas, the book store seems to be gone. Choose whichever pics you'd like. By the way, I think I've seen signs by Heck somewhere before, not sure, but it seems familiar.
Sandy