Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: Blair County

See also a 1909 version of this pass. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 1908 Pass T. D. Leader and wife, foreman carpenters, Altoona Car Shops, over the Eastern & Western Pennsylvania Divisions, during the year 1908, unless otherwise ordered when signed by G. W. Creighton. Not good on Penna. Special or Penna. Limited or Trains 43 or 44. Employee. 2217. G. W. Creighton, gen'l supt., Eastern Penna. Div. S. C. Long, gen'l supt., Western Penna. Div.

See also a 1908 version of this pass. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 1909 Pass T. D. Leader and wife, foreman carpenters, Altoona Car Shops, over the Eastern & Western Pennsylvania Divisions, during the year 1909, unless otherwise ordered when signed by G. W. Creighton. Not good on Penna. Special or Penna. Limited or Trains 43 or 44. Employee. 593. G. W. Creighton, gen'l supt., Eastern Penna. Div. S. C. Long, gen'l supt., Western Penna. Div.

"Grand Concert. Altoona City Band with the assistance of local talent. Opera House, February 16th, 1888. Tickets, 50 cents. Quick Charity and Hospital Fund." A ticket for a charity concert held in 1888 by the Altoona City Band. Looks like the printer used a different typeface for each line on the ticket!

For more information, see the cropped version of this photo:

For more information, see the cropped version of this photo:

A photo of ice skating/skiing/sledging or any fun in the snow for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. This is a photo mounted on cardboard (see the full version below) with the handwritten caption, "On the Normal Campus." Written on the back of the photo are the names of these four young women (mouse over the image above for a close-up view ), who were obviously having fun in the snow as they posed with snowballs: To the left of tree, Catharine Shoup. To the right, and back, Jennie Moyer, Altoona, Pa. To the right, Kathryn Kleckner, Mifflinburg, Pa. In front, Lulu Patton, Warriors' Mark, Pa. I believe that they were studying to be teachers at one of the "normal schools" in Pennsylvania at the time the photo was taken, which was probably sometime in the late 1890s or early 1900s. A normal school , as Wikipedia explains, is simply "a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers." Today we'd typically call them teachers' colleges rather than normal schools. Given the women's names, the home locations for three of them, and the distinctive building with a tower or belfry in the background of the photo, I thought it would be an easy matter to determine what school they were attending when this photo was taken. But I haven't yet been able to place them at a specific school. After searching Find A Grave and other sources, however, I was able to find some information about two of them. Catharine H. Shoup (1883-1977), who's holding a snowball as she stands to the left of the tree in the photo, was a teacher and principal for many years at the Irving School, which I believe was an elementary school in Altoona, Pa. I also located an obituary for Lulu Rose Patton (1881-1932), who's pretending to fend off snowballs as she sits in front of the tree. The Daily News , Huntingdon, Pa., Thursday, August 4, 1932, p. 12, reported the following: ". . . Miss Lulu R. Patton, a missionary in Canton, China, under the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, died on Tuesday night [August 2; other sources give the date as August 3]. . . . Miss Patton was visiting her brother, the Rev. Charles E. Patton, vice president of the Presbyterian board and located at Shanghai, China, at the time of her death. . . . Miss Patton went to China in 1908 as a missionary, coming home about every five years for a vacation. She was last home three years ago. She was identified with the Union Normal School in Canton." When I finally found this obituary and realized that Lulu Patton was a teacher at the Union Normal School in Canton, China, I thought surely that the photo must have been taken there. But then I discovered--alas!--that the city of Canton (now called Guangzhou ) is located in a humid subtropical region, where there is no snow for making snowballs.

"Mrs. P. C. Williams, rooms for tourists, bath, free garage, 1211 Allegheny St., Hollidaysburg, Pa. Kozy and komfortable. Rooms for tourists. Drive in."

Three signs with slightly different wording are visible on this real photo postcard: - "This is Mrs. Campbell's Bar-B-Q." - "This is Mrs. Campbell's Home of the Bar-B-Q." - "This is Mrs. Campbell's Home Bar-B-Q." Judging from the few newspaper advertisements that I was able to track down, Mrs. Campbell's Bar-B-Q was in business near Tyrone, Pennsylvania, during the late 1920s and early 1930s. One ad in the Tyrone Daily Herald , Dec. 22, 1927, p. 8, provides the following information: "Chicken and Waffles Sunday. At Mrs. Campbell's Barbecue. Come and eat all of Mrs. Campbell's famous waffles you can eat. 5 miles west of Tyrone, near Bland's Park. Phone 9756-R." Bland's Park is now known as DelGrosso's Amusement Park and is located along Pleasant Valley Boulevard (also called Old U.S. Route 220) between Tyrone and Altoona. Although the park is still in existence, I haven't been able to determine what happened to Mrs. Campbell's Bar-B-Q. The latest mention of the eatery that I was able to find was an announcement in the Altoona Mirror newspaper for April 10, 1934, p. 20: "The Ladies' Aid society of the Methodist church will meet at Mrs. Campbell's barbecue on Wednesday evening, April 11."

"Curve Premium Beer. Brewed and bottled by Altoona Brewing Co., Altoona, Pa. The famous Horse Shoe Curve. Contents 12 fluid ozs." A beer label featuring an image of the Horseshoe Curve , a three-track railroad curve located near Altoona, Pa., that was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1854 and is still in use today.

A signs photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. "Guess who?" is what appears on the sign on the backs of these women (or could they be men disguised in women's clothes?), and the handwritten message on the other side of this real photo postcard says, "If you know us, drop us a line." The card was postmarked Hollidaysburg, Pa., Dec., 4, 1911, and addressed to "Master Clairmont Hileman, R.F.D. No. 3, Hollidaysburg, Pa." If this is the same person identified as Clairmont W. Hileman (1903-1943) on the Find A Grave Web site, then he was eight years old in 1911.

A proud of their blooming plant photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. In 1910, sixty-year-old Sarah Hetyke posed for this photo next to the blooming mock orange tree in her yard and then wrote a poignant message to her three-year-old nephew on the back of it (see below). Handwritten on the back of this real photo postcard: Lewis Stifler Aug. 9, 1910 Dear Lewis, I am 60 and you are 3. You keep this to look at when I am dead and gone, and remember me. And I hope you will grow up to be a good and useful man. Lovingly, Your Aunt Sarah Hetyke Taken in the yard beside the mock orange tree when [it was] in full bloom.

"The Human Flag, Loyal War Governors Parade, Altoona, Pa., Sept. 1912." A postcard of the "Human Flag"—women holding umbrellas to form the stars and stripes of the United States flag—during the parade in Altoona , Pennsylvania, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Loyal War Governors' Conference .

A 1924 membership card for the Curwensville, Pa., Kennel (chapter) of the Ancient, Honorable, Transcendental, and Effervescent Order of Yellow Dogs. "Ride Si Sapis Sine Cura Esto Perpetuum Hic Et Ubique" (Google translates this from the Latin as: "The ride here forever and everywhere, if you are wise, be wholly free from care.") See also Angelica Paez's Order of Yellow Dogs membership card and my own The Yellow Dogs Will Gnaw at the Ancient Relic, 1923 ticket.

Crawl from here over to the Incredibly Boring Postcards group . Some areas in the vicinity of Altoona and Hollidaysburg--located in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania--are noted for the presence of large mounds (or "ant hills") created by the Allegheny mound ant . Those with an entomological bent will want to seek out Henry C. McCook's early article, " Mound-Making Ants of the Alleghenies, Their Architecture and Habits ," published in the Transactions of the American Entomological Society (1867-1877) , vol. 6 (1877), pp. 253-296.

See also the front of this CDV . "J. G. Vallade, portrait painter and photographer, one door above post office, Altoona, Pa. Negatives will be preserved. Photograph albums, gilt and rosewood frames, and landscape oil paintings for sale."

See also the back of this CDV , which identifies it as coming from the studio of "J. G. Vallade, portrait painter and photographer, one door above post office, Altoona, Pa."