Lake Lucerne, Orlando, Fla.

postmarked November 30, 1905, Winter Park, Fla

Dear I.,

How are you this Thanksgiving Day?

PAC

Miss Ida Hawkins

East Greenwich, Rhode Island

A lovely photograph of how Lake Lucerne appeared over a hundred years ago.  You can see the Historic Inn on the other side of the lake, unobstructed by the Spessard L. Holland East-West Expressway.

East Greenwich, Rhode Island is a town of about 13,000 people today.  It was a waterfront town with a prominent mill built by one of the early developers of steam mill technology, Charles Tillinghast James.  It turns out that Ida Hawkins was his niece.

According to her gravestone in Glenwood Cemetery,  Miss Ida Hawkins was born in 1873.  She attended the East Greenwich Academy, a prominent boarding school, graduating in 1893, then went on to Brown University complete her Bachelor's in education at  in 1897.  She was 32 when she received this card, which would be well after she started her career in teaching at an undetermined high school and before she was married to Alexander Morrison.  After a long life of teaching, she passed away in 1944 at the age of 71.  

Let's hope she was well on this Thanksgiving Day, whoever P.A.C. was. 

Sanibel Island Causeway, Sanibel Island, Florida

postmarked January 26, 1967, Fort Lauderdale, Fla


1/26/67


Have you run out of ink.  Hope you are well and find things you like on T.V.  Remember Jeopardy on 21 at 12:00 to 12:30.


Halls & Mother plan to come on Sunday for a visit.  Don't know how they'll like trailer life.  Mother will stay longer.  Must get busy.


Love Margaret & C.A.


Mr. and Mrs H.W. McConnell
R.D. 2
Sharpsville, Pa 16150


Happy Mother's Day, everyone!  I thought I'd take a break from the Orlando postcards to bring you the best postcard dialogue I've seen yet.  There's no credible search results for an H.W. McConnell in Sharpsville, PA, so just enjoy the T.V. advice from "Trailer Life."

Main Office First Federal Savings and Loan Association, Orlando, Florida

Main Office

First Federal Savings and Loan Association

Orlando, Florida

Our new main office building located at the corner of Magnolia and Church will offer the ultimate in Savings and Loan Facilities.

First Federal Branch Offices are located in Dixie Village, College Park and Apopka.

This is where we have our house mtg. and savings.

Undated, and most likely sent with other postcards in a long ago lost envelope, this postcard shows a fairly intact street corner of downtown Orlando.  In fact, I drive by this building every time I come downtown on my street parking search from Dixie Village (which is what SoDo used to be called.)   The buildings tenants have changed, but this edifice and attached parking garage, built sometime in the mid 1960's, are still vibrant centers of commerce.  First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Orlando, known as "The First," was a casualty of the Savings and Loan scandals that brought many thefts, like the 57 year old institution, to their knees.  

Through sheer coincidence, I know where the College Park branch was located.  I have a small collection of artifacts from Orlando's past, and I just happened to pick up a small glass tray emblazoned with a sketch of the old building, which still stands today.   In fact, if you have a Chase (or most recently a Washington Mutual) account, you may have been to this place at 2424 Edgewater Drive:

Rodeway Inn, Orlando, Florida

Rodeway Inn

5827 Caravan Court

Orlando, Florida 32805

Phone (305) 851-8300

Dining Room + Coffee Shop + Cocktail Lounge + Children's Playground + Meeting Facilities

Nine miles from the main entrance at Disney World

At I-4 and Florida 435.  First interchange south of the Florida Turnpike.

Hi This is where I am staying.  Spent the day at Disney World.  Still don't believe some of it.  See you soon.

Love,

Helen

Mary Rhodes E. Baker

33 Auburn St.

Framingham, Mass. 01701

This Rodeway Inn became a Days Inn sometime in the 1990's, but it's still around in all of its budget motel glory.  Florida Highway 435 is known to Orlando residents as Kirkman Rd, the major artery leading folks to Universal Studios Orlando, Valencia College's West Campus and the communities of Orlo Vista and Pine Hills.  This 1973 postcard was long before Universal Studios, so you can notice the seemingly unending stretch of orange groves behind the motel beyond the interstate.  

The town of Framingham, Massachusetts is If Mary Rhodes Baker lived in the squat apartment buildings that Google maps shows, then her former residence is still standing.  

The Hotel Fort Gatlin, Orlando, Florida

postmarked May 19, 1946, Saint Petersburg, Fla.

Having a nice trip.  Should like to hear from you.  

B. Napier

Box 5141

New Orleans, 15

La, U.S.A.

Mrs.  Dorris Bremner

Vernon Street

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Canada

The Hotel Fort Gatlin was a place where guests could enjoy the famous "golden fried chicken" dinner as well as a comfortable stay in the mid-century City Beautiful.  Our writer must have been so full that he/she forgot to write to Mrs. Bremner until arriving in St. Petersburg, which before I-4 was a half day trip.  The building along Orange Avenue was bought and demolished in 1965 by the Orlando Sentinel who was expanding their operations.  

Doris Bremner was probably born in 1910, and may have been related to the family owned Bremner's Plumbing and Heating of Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The town of about 400,000 was amalgamated into a regional government in 1995.  

Crescent Court, 1721 N. Mills St., Orlando, Florida

Recommended by AAA

CRESCENT COURT

1721 N. Mills St.- on route 17-192

Orlando, Florida

32 Rooms - Air Conditioned _ Electric Heat _ Wall-to-Wall Carpets _ Room Phones

Free Television - Swimming Pool

Phone GArden 2-4482

postmarked February 4, 1960.

Here since last Thursday.  Rain most of the time.

Love, Florence

Mrs. Herbert Bruce

98 Willow Road

Nahant, Mass.

This motel, one of many dotting U.S. 17-92 and other major highways through Orlando, provided a place for weary travelers driving on the pre-Interstate routes through Florida.  (You can find many still in existence on the Orange Blossom Trail, such as the Parliament House.)  Most of these motels had similar construction- a long building divided into small rooms with a courtyard and perhaps a pool out front.  Crescent Court was torn down in the 1990's to make room for the Orlando Immunology Center.

Nahent, Massachusetts is a small town of about 3,000 people in the northern part of the state.  The hues at 98 Willow Ave sits on Dorothy Cove, an inlet of Massachusetts Bay.  Herbert Bruce was listed in the "Who's Who on the Northern Shore of Massachusetts Bay- 1916."  It looks as if Herbert Bruce's wife was named Mildred Bruce, and they had at least one son, Herbert, Jr. who granted the property to someone in 1997.  Mildred was listed as deceased.  What a friend of a fairly prominent family in Massachusetts was doing in an Orlando motel for an entire week is unknown.  At least she had free television.

Central Avenue, Looking West from Court House, Orlando, Fla.

postmarked February 10, 1922

2/9/22

In the centre of the city there is an open space where the men play croquet, cards, pitch quoits or just sit around all hours of the day.  It certainly looks strange.  There are three fairly good sized banks here, but I don't know how good they are.  Remember me to Mrs. Congdon.

Madeline

Mr. W. H. Congdon

Oak Lawn

Rhode Island

Madeline gives us a report on the daily activities of 1922 Orlandans, and of course the quality of the area banks.  It certainly is strange for our writer to choose the pitching of quoits (similar to horseshoes but with a ring) and the area banks to W.H. Congdon, who was a poultry judge and Treasurer of the Rhode Island Poultry Association in 1893.  

This view was most likely taken from the intersection of Court Street and Central Avenue, looking west as the card describes.  The gabled structure is the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks lodge, with unknown retail shops and the San Juan Hotel in the background.  None of these buildings survive today, with the exception of what must be the Yowell-Duckworth building on the south side of the street.