Mystery Spot - Santa Cruz California

The Mystery Spot was first discovered by George Prather in 1939. George Prather was an electrician, mechanic, and inventor before he opened the site. The Mystery Spot was one of several roadside attractions that opened after World War II for new automobile owners and was featured on Art Baker's television show "You Asked For It".

Visitors experience demonstrations that appear to defy gravity, on the short but steep uphill walk and inside a wooden building on the site. The Mystery Spot is a popular tourist attraction, and gained recognition as a roadside "gravity box" or "tilted house". At this roadside attraction, the laws of gravity and physics seem to disappear as balls roll uphill and people lean over past their toes without tumbling over.

The Mystery Spot was nominated in July 2014 to be designated as a California Historical landmark and was officially declared as California Historical Landmark #1055 in August 2014. 

Need to know more?  

https://www.mysteryspot.com/what-is-it 

Santa Catalina Island, California - North End of Avalon Bay

This unused Mitchell postcard above, shows the untarnished Avalon Bay in the late teens or early twenties. It is at this location that the famous Casino Ballroom was built in 1929.

The Durand Mansion - Pasadena, California

In April of 1902, John Durand, a millionaire Chicago businessman, purchased 10 acres-half a block of property known as "Arlington Heights" in Pasadena, California. With 17,000 square feet of floor space - fifty rooms in three stories - the home was said to be the largest in Southern California, if not the entire southwest. The property remained with the family until John M. Durand III died in 1960. The furnishings and art objects were then sold at public auction in 1961, and the home was razed. The card was mailed in 1915.

Long Beach Sanatarium - Long Beach, California

Not much room for any personal correspondence on this card!

Long Beach, California Earthquake - 1933

The Long Beach earthquake of 1933 took place on March 10, 1933 with a magnitude of 6.4, causing widespread damage to buildings throughout Southern California. An estimated fifty million dollars' worth of property damage resulted, and 120 lives were lost. Many of these fatalities occurred as people ran out of buildings and were hit by falling debris. 

The earthquake highlighted the need for earthquake-resistant design for structures in California. So many school buildings were damaged, with more than 230 school buildings that either were destroyed, suffered major damage, or were judged unsafe to occupy, that the Field Act was passed by the California State Legislature on April 10, 1933. The Field Act mandated that school buildings must be earthquake-resistant. If the earthquake had occurred during school hours, the death toll would have been much higher.

Bible Institute of Los Angeles

The Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University) was founded in 1908 by Lyman Stewart, president of the Union Oil Company. The building shown was demolished in 1989.

The back of the card is printed with an invitation to a lecture by Dr. A.C. Dixon. Dr. Dixon was a noted Baptist pastor, Bible expositor and evangelist popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Surf Auto Hotel - Santa Monica, California

The "awesome" Surf Auto Hotel is no longer there being replaced by the high-end Lowes Santa Monica Beach Hotel...Catalina Island however is still there!

Observatory - Wilson's Peak, California - 1915

The observatory was conceived and founded by George Ellery Hale. The Mount Wilson Observatory was first funded by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1904, leasing the land from the owners of the Mount Wilson Hotel in 1904. This version of the Observatory is from 1907-1909

Bekins Van and Storage - 1911

Bekins Van Lines was founded in 1891 in Sioux City, Iowa, by two young Dutch immigrant brothers, Martin and John Bekins. Martin moved west four years later, first to Omaha, Neb., and then Los Angeles.

In its heyday the Bekins Co. owned more than 100 storage buildings in 14 states. In an attempt to streamline its operations in the face of stiff competition, Bekins began selling off its real estate in the early 1980s. By 1983, when purchased by Minstar Inc. of Minneapolis, Minn., Bekins' stock of warehouses had been reduced to 55.

Auditorium - Largest Concrete Building in the World - Los Angeles, California

After doing a little research I discovered that the building was just known as the "Auditorium" until the Los Angeles Philharmonic moved there in the early 1920's. As it pertained to buildings, the title of "World's Largest" or "World's Tallest" was a moving target through the early part of the century. In typical Los Angeles style, there is a parking lot now in the Auditoriums former location.

If you're interested in the history of concrete, and who isn't?  👀  You can go here:

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/architecture/bsc/classes/bsc314/timeline/timeline.htm

Italian Swiss Colony - Asti, California - 1950's

In 1880, California viticulture was rising in prominence. For Andrea Sbarboro, an Italian-American businessman, a winery seemed a natural fit for his Italian countrymen who were looking for work. He formed a new association chartered to fund an agricultural investment. Membership would be limited to Italians, but given the closeness of the Ticinesi both culturally and linguistically, Swiss were also allowed to join. He would name his venture the Italian-Swiss Agricultural Colony.

Sbarboro was an Italian immigrant who had arrived in San Francisco in 1850 at the age of 13. He started in the grocery business but later shifted his activities to local loan associations. He would famously found the Italian-American Bank, which merged in 1927 with A. P. Giannini’s Bank of Italy to become the Bank of America.

This card is from a black & white photo that has been tinted. You can tell since some things in the photo are still "shades-of-gray". Weird!...nobody's tasting wine!

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When Asti was founded more than 125 years ago as Italian Swiss Colony, the goal was to create a thriving community that revolved around wine. For a while, that plan worked – at one point in the 1960s, the winery was the No. 2 tourist attraction in the state, second only to Disneyland.

Amid an evolving wine business and a string of ownership changes, the Asti Winery shut its doors to the public in the late 1980s and essentially became an industrial wine factory. 

The Ship Cafe, Venice, California

Venice California holds a special place in my collection and in my heart. I grew up in  West Los Angeles and graduated from Venice High School. As an adult, I lived in Ocean Park (beach town between Santa Monica and Venice) for over 20 years. I still have friends and family in the neighborhood. While I never got to see the Cabrillo (or many other Venice treasures from the past), these postcards make me feel like I have.

The Ship Cafe, built in 1905 alongside the Abbot Kinney pier, was the "in" spot to find some of this "action." Named the "Cabrillo," the combination hotel-restaurant was fashioned after a Spanish galleon and served up high-priced cuisine in the main dining room, or in private salons on the second deck. The staff were uniformed like sixteenth-century naval officers

The Ship was available for private functions, which many of Hollywood's rising stars preferred, and the mayhem that attended New Year's Eve made for headline copy. It was at the Ship that Valentino had his heels cooled by movie queen Nazimova, who called him a "pimp" and a "gigolo" at a private party she was throwing for coworkers at Metro Goldwyn Mayer. And it was Buster Keaton who, pestered by autograph hounds, jumped out of one of the restaurant's portholes in a faked escape attempt, only to find twice as many fans when he returned.

On the Sunday night of January 11, 1920, before Prohibition took effect, an estimated 100,000 revelers jammed the seaside resort of Venice, closing off all available avenues into the town. Tables at the Ship Cafe went for $300, and doors were closed at 10 p.m. after capacity had long since been reached.

But the Cabrillo's heyday was before the Depression, and it slipped into obscurity, eventually to be razed in October 1946. 

Angels Flight, Los Angeles, California

The original Angels Flight Railway location, with tracks connecting Hill Street and Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles, operated from 1901 until it was closed in 1969, when its site was cleared for redevelopment. The entire railway was dismantled and put into storage (SEE!, we don't destroy all that is old in L.A!) The second Angels Flight location opened nearby to the south in 1996. It was re-closed in 2001, after a fatal accident, and took nine years to commence operations again, on March 15, 2010. Some more info and nice pictures at: http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/23044083

Found these original tickets in a shoe-box at a postcard show.

This linen is postmarked July 16, 1951

The photo below is NOT a postcard, but it is a neat perspective of what was then and what is now. Photo is from the L.A.Times photo archieve, "Framework"

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/01/07/angels-flights-first-opening/#/0

Wave Motor, Santa Cruz, California

It seems like an early Mitchell postcard. The layout almost looks more like a Detroit. Never had heard of the "wave motor" until seeing this card. An interesting, but failed concept.

The inventors were a pair of brothers named William and John Armstrong. The wave motor, an oscillating water column, was built inside the cliff. They had dug a thirty-five by six foot hole into the side of the cliff that ran to a level below low tide. From there another tunnel connected it with the ocean. The purpose was to get water up to the the scenic dirt road on the bluff that needed to be kept damp because of the dust that was kicked up by tourists..

Some more info on the wave motor here:
http://www.haskey.com/johnh/wave_motor/index.html

The wave motor was dismantled in 1910 because of improved street paving that made it unnecessary to water down the roads. One of the tunnels still remains in the cliffs to this day.

Glacier Lodge, Big Pine, California

I tried to improve the look of this postcard, but the fact that the card is of low quality and my Photoshop skills are suspect, this is as good as it gets! Glacier Lodge is located in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains above Big Pine. The original lodge (1930's) you see in the picture is gone but "Glacier Lodge. the jewel of the Sierras" is still in business.

The "handwriting" on this card is part of the card itself. Perry did not personally write the message, but my grandfather Lewis Perry Ferguson did leave me this postcard!...and my middle name!. Sadly I never did get to see Glacier Lodge in person.