Trip to Valley Forge, Part 1

My recent trip back “home” to the Philly area included a detour to one of my favorite childhood haunts, Valley Forge. It was the site of the Continental Army's challenging 1777-1778 winter encampment and known as the birthplace of the professional American military, where George Washington’s rag-tag soldiers morphed into a victorious fighting force in the Revolutionary War. At the edge of the now National Historical Park lies the Valley Forge Motor Court motel, as seen in this August 1959 image.

The Valley Forge Motor Court Motel is a classic mid-century roadside motel built around 1958 to accommodate visitors drawn to the area’s historical attractions and the nearby entertainment venue, The Valley Forge Music Fair (another story altogether). Below is a Google image of how the motel looks today.



In the below August 1961 shot you can see the neon sign that still stands out in my memory:



Meant to represent one of Washington’s soldiers, I don’t recall if the neon was still working at the time I was growing up. I have doubts that I ever saw it lit. I hope the sign survived, but my guess is that it ended up in a landfill.



Another Google image below shows how bland the property looks now, especially the sign. It seems that the stone base of the sign is the original one, as the stonework matches.



Interestingly enough, according to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's fifty-year standard, the motor court officially qualifies as a historic property. However, despite meeting the age threshold, the structure lacks formal historic preservation protection, leading to ongoing local debates over whether to demolish the single-story motel for new multi-story hotel and senior living developments. I could make a guess as to which option would prevail, but that would just reveal my cynicism. In happier days, the Motor Court looked like this, as seen in a vintage postcard found on eBay:



They even had matchbooks!



If the tar and nicotine on the wall could only talk…
 
See more Valley Forge photos at my main website.

Temple Tuesday: The Alphabet Blouse Mystery

This recent acquisition had no useful info identifying what it was shot for, other than a stamped date on the back of it from April 6, 1949. I “assumed” it was a hairtest for Shirley Temple’s Technicolor feature, “The Story of Seabiscuit,” based on two other images from my collection shown below:



Both of these were dated April 7, 1949, and show her wearing an outfit seen in the film.



This publicity shot with costar Lon McAllister shows how the hair and dress looked in the film:



Shirley looks positively mesmerized in this wardrobe shot, taken when the film was still being referred to as, “Always Sweethearts.”



Back to the post’s topic: what has become known as “The Alphabet Blouse,” thanks to Shirley expert supreme, Rita Dubas. I reached out to her to see if she had any background on it, since it was not seen in “The Story of Seabiscuit.” A deleted scene? A piece of Shirley’s personal wardrobe that she wore during the hairtest? This wire photo from my collection also shows Shirley in the blouse, posing with her daughter Linda Susan.



From the accompanying publicity caption:

HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 28—SHIRLEY’S BABY TWO YEARS OLD—Shirley Temple’s baby, Linda Susan Agar, turns on a smile as winsome as her famous mother’s on the even of her second birthday. She will be two on Monday, and for a birthday gift from Shirley’s father, they will fly to Hawaii tomorrow for a three-weeks’ vacation.

Rita dug up this newspaper clipping talking about the same Hawaii trip, circa January 1950:



Want to see a clearer version of my wire photo? Of course Rita was able to supply one! It looks so much better, proving that source material is key! You can see from this image and the first one in the post that the letters are not embroidered but rather metallic.



Rita also kindly supplied this color shot by Bert Parry of Linda Susan and Shirley at home (early 1949), once again wearing the Alphabet Blouse.



She found this photo on Getty Images from the same session:



As she always does, Rita exhausted every avenue at her disposal to find out what the blouse was about, and especially the meaning of the letters on the straps:

While you can pretty much see many of the letters now, I still can’t figure out what it’s all about. I looked up “alphabet fashion fad of the 1940s” to see if this type of random letter outfit was a thing at the time, and nothing came up. I know that Shirley owned a few dresses with her initials, so maybe these were the initials of some of her friends? I couldn't find any organization or group that Shirley was a member of having corresponding letters (and there are a LOT of letters!), At any rate, now we know it was from her personal 1949-1950 wardrobe and not film related. It looks like there may be three letter bands with one being under the neck bow, but all I can see of that band is a "B" with a possible "A, O" at the bottom. Here are the letters that I can put together from your image and the ones here: On Shirley's right: E, D, U, A (the rest are covered); on Shirley's left: O, Z, E, G, R, D, K, B, U, H, (?), R. Maybe it's all just a jumble of letters made to drive us crazy!

Any wordsmiths/Shirley fans out there who can solve the mystery?

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.

Disneyland August 1958, Pt. 2

Sorry for the break, folks, but as the saying goes…life gets in the way. Hopefully these rare gems from August 1958 will make up for my absence. The first image is a rare interior of the Frontierland Shooting Gallery. Who would be crazy enough to attempt an indoor photo back in 1958? The fantastic photographer I am showcasing today! Well, technically not really an interior since the Gallery was open air, but you know what I mean. The below November 1958 image shows the exterior:



This August 1968 photo is the only one in my collection (so far) that also features the “interior”:



Moving deeper into Frontierland, we see this (assumed) son and mother combo sitting on the patio of the Chicken Plantation restaurant:



Pulling back for a nighttime exterior view:



While nighttime images from “back in the day” typically don’t yield a lot of detail due to camera limitations, this one produced an interesting view of the interior through the patio door:



This 1955 image shows the side exterior of the building and the aforementioned patio door:



The last one for today from the August 1958 batch is a nighttime view of the Richfield sign at the Autopia attraction:



The October 1956 shot below, most likely taken from the Skyway, gives you an idea of where the sign was on the attraction:



Can you believe that Harbor Drive ever looked this empty?



See more Disneyland photos at my main website.