• Southern Bowling Lanes

Wow, that's really saying something, isn't it? But back then, you have to understand that bowling was a sport often undertaken in converted buildings and basements, with poor lighting, no air conditioning, and more inconveniences than a medieval torture chamber. Or so I gather from the glowing press releases about this establishment.

Thank goodness the Southern, built for a whopping $150,000, changed all that. Not only were its 24 gleaming hardwood lanes well-lighted and air-conditioned, it boasted the unheard of luxury of "having no posts to mar the beauty of the alleys." Despite a rather traditional Colonial Revival exterior (as shown on this old matchbook), the interior featured "the latest streamlined effects," including such marvels as spacious dressing rooms for men and women bowlers, a restaurant, a ladies powder room, and a gadget called a "teliscore" for keeping track of the games.

The Southern Bowling Lanes' grand opening took place on August 11, 1941, with "dignitaries of the city, sports world, and other walks of life" singing the "Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America." That was just to open the show. These various celebrities — who included the president of the Memphis Bowling League, the president of the American Bowling Congress, and a fellow named Jim Kelly, identified as "the South's oldest bowler" — then dedicated each alley, one at a time (all 24 of them!) with grandiose speeches and ribbon-cuttings.

• The Vault Club in 1960

"A door estimated to cost $75,000 — probably one of the most expensive doors in the world — opens onto a room in one of the most unusual clubs ever formed in Memphis," said the Memphis Press-Scimitar, without bothering to mention that a similar door guarded the main vaults at the Lauderdale Mansion. "Nobody seems to know quite how long the vault has been there. It's been in the building for decades. Its brass still shines, but it looks venerable and expensive."

Oh, please. There was really no mystery to it. The vault was presumably installed when the building was constructed in 1907, since 81 Madison was originally home to the Tennessee Trust Company and later Union Planters Bank. Developer Philip Belz bought the 15-story property in 1958, one of the first steel-frame skyscrapers in the city, and converted it into offices.

The Vault Club, he told reporters, "would offer Memphis businessmen the same sort of fine surroundings in which to dine, relax, and talk business which they might find in New York." Assuming they liked to dine, relax, and talk business while locked away in a big bank vault, that is. Luncheon would be offered during the week, and there would be piano music on weekends, "but it is not envisioned as a place where there will be dancing and partying."

No, obviously not. Mainly because staying more than 10 minutes inside this thing gave people the heebie-jeebies. Or maybe that was just me?

• Putt-Putt in 1961

But back in the 1950s and 1960s, miniature-golf courses were considerably more basic. Just a few twists and turns in the course, maybe a few hoops to get the ball through. And you played golf, and that was it. No driving ranges or arcades or water slides or anything like that. And one of those early Putt-Putts was located on Perkins, close to Southern and the railroad tracks — pretty much where CK's Coffee Shop stands today.

I remember this place, mainly for the bright-orange borders along the astroturf "fairways," but I wasn't able to find a photo of it until now, when I was leafing through a White Station High School yearbook from the early 1960s. Not a very clear picture, but it's all I've got. Notice that the caption says this was "the best course in Memphis" and the Spartans shown here seem to be having one heckuva good time.

Then one day it was gone, replaced over the years with an International House of Pancakes (or some kind of pancake joint), a Johnny Rockets, maybe some other establishments. I wonder what they did with that neat "PUTT PUTT" sign that served as the obstacle on the last hole?

It's certainly a far cry from places like Goofy Golf, which had opened about this time down in Panama City, Florida, where miniature golfers wandered through a jungle maze, their putting skills challenged by giant dinosaurs, apes, whales, and other creatures. But hey, this wasn't the Miracle Strip — this was Memphis, where you played a hot game of golf and then cooled off with a milkshake at Shoney's. Well, I sure did, anyway.

• Time Capsule "Grave" Today

Buried in 1956, the "capsule" was basically a large glass jar crammed with all sorts of things that fair officials thought Memphians of the future would enjoy when (or IF) they dug the thing up 100 years later — in 2056. I can't remember the exact contents, though I'm sure it was all very interesting stufff.

But what really made this time capsule unusual was the fact that, according to newspaper accounts at the time, the jar was sealed with a "radioactive substance."

Uh, oh.

Well, now my pal Angela Freeman Parks tells me that the time capsule has gone missing:
"Vance, THE TIME CAPSULE IS GONE!!! My husband just drove by the old fairgrounds ... not only is the Pippin gone. But the time capsule buried on that site in 1956 and to be opened in 2056, containing a glimpse into the world from the opening of the fair in 1856 to 1956. All that remains is fresh concrete."

Sure enough, as you can see from the photo I took of the area today, she's right.

Hmmm, this just might be a problem. I don't know who took it, or where it is right now. But I sure hope the culprits wore lead gloves and kept a geiger counter handy while they were doing it.

The picture below shows the nice monument that marked the spot until recently.

• The same spot last year

• South Main Street - 1961

This nighttime view of South Main Street — taken by an unknown photographer and discovered in a box of Kodachrome slides tucked away in the Lauderdale Library — shows the Warner Theatre in 1961. I know the date because that's when the movie Parrish, promoted on the theatre's stunning marquee, was showing. The drama starred Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, and Claudette Colbert, and lobby cards proclaimed that it depicted "More Than a Boy ... But Not Yet a Man!"

Oh, how many times that same phrase has been used to describe ME — usually by my team of psychiatrists. The pills they gave me just do no good at all.

There's wasn't much traffic on Main Street on this evening. Though the Warner is long gone, the old Lawrence Furniture building next door (originally constructed in the late 1800s as the Lemmon & Gale Building) is still standing on Main Street, as are many of the other structures dimly visible in the old photograph.

• Silver Horseshoe Motel

A few miles to the west, an older tourist court was already standing on the north side of Summer, just west of Perkins. It had gone by many names since it opened in the 1940s, but most Memphians remember it as the Silver Horseshoe. I'm not sure how it got such a distinctive name, since no part of it was painted silver, and the rows of cottages nestled under the old trees were (as far as I can tell) not arranged in a horseshoe shape. It was just a basic little motel, which managed to stay in business for four decades or more, until the bulldozers finally pushed it all down in the late 1980s to make way for a shopping center.

What WAS distinctive about the whole complex was the oddly designed little diner that stood next door to the Silver Horseshoe office. Called — what else? — the Horseshoe Diner, this tiny cafe was all jutting rooflines and weird struts, painted a nice green and white.

I managed to take a few photos of the Silver Horseshoe and Horseshoe Diner just days before they came tumbling down, so here you go. Enjoy.

• Horseshoe Diner

• Silver Horseshoe Motel

• Silver Horseshoe Motel

Well, here's the ad, and here's the radio. Fancy, isn't it?

The Garod Neutrodyne is described as "the most beautiful receiving set in America. The cabinet is mahogany, highly finished, with sloping panel." And just look — it comes complete with three three big knobs (for "selectivity, tone, and volume") and a tiny dial. And not much else, apparently.

Keep in mind this is what you got for $195. If you wanted tubes, batteries, and a speaker (and you'd certainly want all three if you expected to listen to that radio), you paid a whopping $275.

By comparison, in the 1920s you could buy a CAR for $750, and a complete house for around $1,000. Makes you appreciate that little iPod a bit more, no?

• The 1925 Garod Neutrodyne

• Lyceum Theatre Program, 1924/25

First of all, it was packed with ads for long-gone Memphis businesses and products. The Buckingham-Ensley-Carrigan Company (whew, they need a shorter name) was offering the new Garod Neutrodyne radio, "a five-tube receiver of the latest design, using the famous Hazeltine circuit." This thing cost $195 — an enormous sum in those days. And if you wanted tubes, batteries, and a speaker (you know, all the things that would actually make it WORK), you'd have to pay $275. (By comparison, a ticket to a box seat at the Lyceum cost only $1.)

Elsewhere around town, Hull-Dobbs announced, "Our service floor and shop are open all night for adjustments and repairs on Ford cars." The Romie Beauty Shoppe offered "marceling, permanent waving, and the latest cuts in shingles and bobs." Roy Grinding Company (apparently a very specialized business) urged, "Ladies, bring us your scissors to grind and we will make them cut like new." Cassie McNulty's Hat Shop (oh, what a great name!) promoted their "beautiful line of Spring hats." The Laird School of Dancing offered classes in "plain and fancy ballroom dancing." And Permo Service Station advised readers that their car could be "called for and PERMANIZED within three hours." Permanized?

• Yes, it's a telephone pole. Nice!

And then, all by itself, we have a stunning full-color postcard of ... a telephone pole, standing at the corner of Perkins and Summer. Gaze at it in awe. Just think of purchasing cards like these by the dozen, and sending them to all your friends, with the clichéd postcard message, "Having a great time! Wish you were here."

This particular postcard was printed by the Dow Chemical Company (it says so on the back, you see), because they were so very proud of the coating they had applied to this particular pole. Maybe they had treated other poles in Memphis the same way, but this is the one they selected for their postcards.

And who can blame them? Just look at it! Nice-looking and quite tall, and fairly straight, with a stunning white base. It's carrying a pair of heavy cables AND a street light. Who among us, from day to day, can say we do as much?

• Medical Center - Late 1950s

So I might share some of them with you from time to time. This one is an especially clear view of Russwood Park, destroyed by fire in 1961 in one of our city's biggest blazes. So there's one clue to the date of the photo: before 1961.

That's Madison Avenue running diagonally across the top part of the photo — just about the only manmade object in this whole sweeping image that has survived, 40 years later. Across the street from the old baseball stadium is the original portion of the old Baptist Hospital. In the foreground you can see the incredible Italian Renaissance-designed Memphis Steam Laundry building, with one of the tallest smokestacks in town.

To the right are various older hospital buildings in our city's medical center, most of them replaced by The Med complex. And if you squint your eyes and look very carefully, you can barely make out the circular Duke Bowers Wading Pool in the corner of Forrest Park.

Not a trace remains of any of these things, not even the little neighborhood down in the bottom left corner, so it's a good thing somebody held onto these old photos after all these years, isn't it?

A reader named Elizabeth Kelley just sent me this email, so look in your closets and attics and libraries and see if you can help her out. I just assumed Central had a complete collection of their old yearbooks, but I guess I assumed wrong. The Lauderdale Library is lacking many volumes, too. But with so many Central alumni out there, somebody must have an old yearbook tucked away, even an old one like this.

Dear Vance: Luckily, I’ve stumbled upon your blog “Ask Vance”, and decided to give it a shot. I’m looking for a copy of a 1937 Central High School yearbook containing what I hope are the graduation photos of my parents. Can you suggest a resource in Memphis where I might find this item? I have contacted Central’s library and the Shelby County library. Both reply they have no yearbook for that year.

Thanks for your very interesting blog, and for any help you might give me.

Elizabeth Kelley

Robert Harrell, one of my readers from Gadsden, Alabama — okay, he's probably the ONLY reader from Gadsden, Alabama — always writes in with intriguing questions. In a recent epistle, prompted by my compelling and heart-warming story of the old police station on South Barksdale, he remembers a small police station that once stood on the corner of North Parkway and North McLean.

Here's what he says:

"There was a police station located at the intersection of North Parkway and North McLean — southeast corner. We would drive past it at night and see officers inside the attractive building. The zoo fence was adjusted to provide room for the building, and today this same fence is still standing, with the location of the police building vacant, and no visible indication of a former building.

"Was this a substation for the Barksdale station? It was across North Parkway from Snowden School, and has been gone since 1934."

This is a mystery to me. I've never heard of such a place, but according to Mr. Harrell, it stood on the corner where the zoo now has its "Back to the Farm" complex. If anybody knows more about this, or — even better — has a photo of the building, please let me know.

But I recently turned up an interesting old sales postcard from the Broadway Coal Company, which will at least tell you the various kinds of coal you received from Santa, and quite frankly the names of this stuff just fascinated me. I mean, at the Mansion the Lauderdales certainly never sullied their hands by actually dealing with coal, or the vendors who supplied it, but gosh-a-mighty I never realized there were so many different types.

If I had to choose, I'd probably go with "Broadway Special Stoker" because it just sounds so, well, special (though a bit pricey at $8.20 a ton). I also like the "Lewis Creek Nut," "Arcola Egg," and "High Grade Pea and Slack" just for their names.

What's especially interesting — to me, anyway — is that Broadway, like so many other coal companies around town, also sold ice. Now coal and ice don't seem to have a lot in common, if you ask me, and this kind of thing bothers me as much as that business of funeral homes operating ambulance services. There's just something unnatural about it.

• Sambo's advertisement - 1977

That's what makes it so hard to believe that, in the 1970s, Memphis had not just one, but three, restaurants in town called Sambo's, which used the jungle and animal imagery from the book as their decorating theme. As you can see from this ad, which I scanned from the back cover of a 1977 Duration Club program, you could take your pick from the Sambo's on Winchester, Summer, or Poplar.

What's interested, too, is that this particular ad didn't feature the little African child as the restaurant's "mascot" but instead the tiger, which — if I remember correctly — was turned into butter when Little Sambo made him run faster and faster around the tree where ... oh, you'll just have to read the book.

All the Sambo's restaurants in Memphis are gone now, in case you were wondering. And, despite the ad, I really doubt if everyone who dined there got balloons.

• The Fairgrounds Pool

Sometime in the 1930s — I could look up the exact date, but I'm pretty comfy in my chair here, and the book is all the way across the room — city leaders built Memphis' largest swimming pool. It was a huge, oval thing, surrounded by sand beaches. Maywood and Clearpool did the same thing. With sand, I mean.

On the west side was a low building (shown here) that housed showers, changing rooms, and showers. And across the front was a big sign, as you can plainly see, warning all swimmers "ALL OUT WHEN BELL RINGS." In other words, get out of the pool when the lifeguard rings a bell — either to signify that somebody might be drowning, or your swimming day was coming to a close. I don't recall what those tile-roofed buildings in the background were used for. I can only do so much, you know, and these days that's really not much at all.

Notice the old-fashioned lightpoles around the pool. I wonder: was this place open at night?

And yes, as I sit here shivering in the drafty Lauderdale Mansion, I realize it's not exactly the season for outdoor swimming, but I thought I'd share the old photo with you anyway. This place was known as the civic pool, and just like Rainbow Lake, Clearpool, and Maywood (and in more recent years, Adventure River), there's not a trace of it. Despite our unbearable summers, Memphis, it seems, just can't support a big outdoor swimming complex. It doesn't make sense, does it?