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| Downtown Minneapolis, Mn. courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society. |
Welcome from
"Rudolph’s Furniture Store" in Duluth, Minnesota which is Sepia Saturday’s theme for 12 March 2011. The window sign in Alan's theme photo says "August Sale" and the chevy is a 1956 (probably brand new) and 4 salesmen, the second from left being the store’s owner, Leonard Rudolph and three other unidentified men. The mystery surrounding this photo still intrigues me.
If you want to add your own Sepia Saturday post for more information go here
http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2011/03/sepia-saturday-65-saturday-12-march.html
It's amazing how many copies of this one photo are on the Internet. The 3rd salesman pictured appears like a Colin Firth look-a-like, who apparently has captured every one's attention. What were they discussing? Was it something randomly funny about their store or, the new and gleaming 1956 Chevy beside them?
Whatever the story, there isn’t much information on the web regarding Rudolph's and only one other picture (of their original building on 3rd Avenue and 1st Street which burned down in 1950) both photos submitted by the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest.
So veering off the men and the 1956 Chevy we’ll visit a few Minnesota stores (and one from Michigan) of the fifties within the realms of Sepia Saturday.
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| This is my father's uncle Elgene, the loneliest Maytag Repair man in town. This is his store in East Lansing, Michigan, sometime in the 1950's. |
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A typical 1950's era photo of downtown Ely, Mn and what you'd expect to see on a busy weekend day during fishing season. Minnesota Historical Society.
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| Downtown Minneapolis 1950's street scene featuring a very famous "Three Sisters" ladies apparel shop. Minnesota Historical Society. |
15 comments:
Take me back, I'm beggin' please! Love that era. Life was simple.
I love those old cars with canoes on top... In eastern NC, I got all kind of second takes driving around in the 70s with a canoe on top (even today, my canoe racks are permanently mounted my truck's back cab.
Those first few photos make me feel like I just stepped onto the set of "Back To The Future." :)
Take me back? I'm not sure I would have wanted to be back in Duluth in 1850.
Great post as usual, Karen.
I don't think I'd want to go back to either of those times, but it sure brings up nostalgic feelings. Great photos.
I posted about my honeymoon car, but later we had one like in your first photo which was stolen while on a trip to San Francisco. Ah, the wonderful nostalgic feelings!
Barbara
a great historic post and this should help Alan ever increase his knowledge of MN & Duluth! I especially enjoyed the Chevrolet sign and the cars.
Fabulous pictures, and yes, the Chevrolet sign is amazing. The Plymouth building photo is great too.
The first photo is my favorite...oh, except maybe the one with Uncle Elgene is even better because there's a human connection there. It's interesting to see that simple signs and building - and cars! - were designed with so much more attention to style than they are today.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. You have taken the bare outlines of the original image and filled it with detail and colour. Collaborative blogging at its best. Thanks.
I love the Grain Belt Beer sign and the Maytag store. I collect Minneapolis postcards, so the Minneapolis views are most interesting to me.
love your pics, especially the fishing boats on cars, and i don't even fish!!...
nice that people there have access to the lakeside. it does enhance life in the city.
:)~
HUGZ
A wonderful set of photos, I especially liked the 1850's one. What a hard place it must have been to live in back then.
The first shot of the Chevy dealer has me thinking back to what Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco used to look like. One car dealer after another along the big avenue. Beautiful big showrooms with giant windows. At night everything was sparkly and beautiful. Alas, the car dealers are gone.
I love Duluth and miss seeing it. I haven't been up for a couple of years.
Thanks so much everyone, I really had great fun with this, old cars, storefronts, wagons and canoes and showing off my great uncle Elgene! He really was lonely too, that's how good those washers were back then!
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