If you are planning a trip to St.Louis on a nice sunny day and you don’t feel like taking Interstate 70 for the 150th time, consider the U.S. Route 50 – a slightly longer and slower, but fun and picturesque way of getting there. Once the road leaves the Kansas City area with all of its Lee’s Summits and such, it heads to Sedalia amidst beautiful country landscapes, pothole- and traffic-free.
I had an idea for this post for some time and what could be a better day to do this when Kansas City is swirling with football news (it’s like someone was just waiting for years to pull the trigger and update Wikipedia) and it’s cold as hell (and I know cold) so I am not about to go outside to snap some photos.
Looks like Kansas School for the Deaf – the birthplace of the football huddle maintains the most complete set of annual pictures of their football team. In today’s issue I will post some photos to trace the evolution of their uniforms (yes, there is evolution in Kansas, you just have to know where to look).
Note: I took a shortcut here and bypassed lots of uploading/linking, so all the photos link back to the search results.
1899
1900
1901
1911
1914
1919
1927
1931
1946
1948
1952
1961
1968
1982
2006
This look at the past was brought to you by the Kansas City Lunch Spots : Celebrating 100’s meaningful post.
Also sponsored by: The Weather: It’s Frightful
Additional financing by: My Job: I am still employed!
I’ve been clipping copying these ads from the old Life magazines for a long time and, chances are, you might have seen some of them on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. The ads are just as neat and interesting as the actual content of the old magazines; nowadays some of them would be considered racist, sexist or both, but it doesn’t make them any less of a historic record of their epoch; they were perfectly acceptable at the time and they make the progress much more obvious. Makes, models, shapes, prices long forgotten; “amazing auto-pilots” and cars “for women drivers” – you won’t see ads like these in the magazines of today. I thought I’d share a few ads on this blog in a somewhat organized manner. The first installment will be about cars, but I am planning to follow up with food and other things. These ads are in no particular order since I was too lazy to make a not of the year and issue.
Today’s trip to the past of the Johnson County,KS takes time travelers to historic downtown Overland Park.
Then:Voights Building Black and white photo of the Voights building at 80th and Santa Fe Dr. taken from opposite corner showing intersection of the two unpaved, dirt streets. There are two men sitting on bench outside of drugstore. A horse-drawn carriage is parked on one side of the building and an automobile is parked on the other visible side. The building itself is brick with striped awnings over the windows and doorways. There are several large windows at the store front. The window behind the men on the bench says “DRUGS.” Also visible in this picture is a wooded “Rail Road Crossing” sign, a telephone pole, a tree, and another brick building in the background.
Apparently Voights Building (1911-1927) burned in 1927 and was rebuilt as a one story building where law offices are today; we also find out that it was located at the North-West corner of 80th and Santa Fe. Another mention of the historic building is here.
And here is what it looked like today:
This look at the past was brought to you by the Kansas City Lunch Spots : Where Lunches and Spots Meet In The Open. Also sponsored by: My Job: Weekdays Off, WTF. Additional financing by: Old People: We Were There When the Old Building Burned.
Previous posts here and here.
