Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: fishing rods

"The Way We Catch Them. Souvenir Post Card Co., N.Y." Postmarked Ocean City, N.J., Sept. 6, 1919.

An on the water photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. A curious photo of a boy and a dog in a rowboat out on the water. Both of them are looking toward the photographer, who's on the shore or in another boat. The boy is holding a fish in one hand and a fishing rod in the other, and he's wearing a headdress and other clothing in imitation of Native American garb (for a closer view, see a cropped version ). Along the far shore in the background is what looks like the silhouette of a swan, though it seems much too big to be a real bird. This is an unused real photo postcard with an AZO stamp box on the back that suggests that the photo may date to sometime between 1904 and 1918 (or perhaps later).

Handwritten message on the back of this real photo postcard: "To yous all. This is a view of our tents. Rhoads and two of the clerks came down one night. Hunter." The seven Raise 'ell campers are sitting in front of their tents. What appears to be a quilt or coverlet is visible in the first open tent, and the man seated in front of that tent is still holding the shotgun he posed with in the first photo . Charles R. Rhoads was a pharmacist in the nearby town of Hyndman , Pa., in the 1900s and 1910s. Could he have been the Rhoads who--along with two of the clerks in his pharmacy--visited the camp? And how ironic is it--considering the guns that are visible in the photos and the hunting that presumably took place during the camping trip--that the writer's name is "Hunter"!

Handwritten message on the back of this real photo postcard: "This is the table where we had a many good meal those ten days. The lady at the end was a visitor. She brought 1 gal. of ice cream along." The seven Raise 'ell campers and a visitor are seated around the table where they had "a many good meal" during their stay. Perhaps they're eating the ice cream that the woman at right brought with her. Next to her are two milk cans, which were probably used to store water. The stream that's visible In the background is Wills Creek , which is still a popular fly-fishing destination today. Is that a Buster Brown outfit that the boy is wearing in this photo and the previous one ?

Handwritten message on the back of this real photo postcard: "This was the name of our camp at Cooks Mill where we was the last ten days of August." These seven campers have enough firepower--a couple of shotguns and a rifle--to "raise hell," as their sign suggests, but it's more likely they used their guns and rods for hunting and fishing (I'm not sure why the one woman is holding a tin horn, though). Their camping trip, which took place during August sometime in the 1900s or 1910s, is documented in these three photos (the one above and two more below). The location--Cooks Mill--was a small settlement in rural Bedford County, Pennsylvania, that was described in 1900 as having one store, a grist mill, and ten dwellings.

"Walter S. Welton, dealer in fine boots & shoes, 338 Chapel St., New Haven, Conn. Copyrighted by John Gibson, 1881." A colorful and amusing Victorian-era advertising trade card.

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of tattered & torn (or otherwise damaged) . "For[idian] Ho[tel]. Floridian fishing dock, Miami Beach. Caught on yacht Skip Jack, Capt. E. P. Le May." A tattered, torn, creased, and taped photo of two fishermen posing with a sailfish on the dock of the Floridian Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida.