Vintage Jacksonville

There is no information about what was being filmed but it looks to me like a production shoot, perhaps some type of commercial, late 1940’s or early 1950’s.

According to the 1949 Jacksonville City directory the Harry P. Davis Service Station was located at 2045 Hendricks Avenue, just before the San Marco intersection with Atlantic Blvd.  The entire block is now cleared awaiting redevelopment.

I contact Herb Gold who dates back to WFGA-TV in Jacksonville during the 1950’s and is well acquainted with the technology of the era and he said the big housing on the film camera is a sound blimp, a sound dampening housing that went over the camera to muffle its noise so it would not be picked up by microphones recording sound close to the camera position.

Tags: camera crew, film, gas station, Harry P. Davis, Hendricks Avenue, historic photography, men, San Marco, Texaco, TV, vintage photograph, women

A beautiful bride surrounded by her wedding gifts.  It looks like she did pretty good!  Unfortunately, as with most of the wedding photographs in the Loyd Sandgren collection, there were no notes with this image to identify the newlywed but if anyone can help put a name or location with this photograph, I would love to add the information to the post.

Tags: bride, historic photograph, silver, vintage photography, wedding, wedding dress, wedding gifts

“Bunny Yeager, a famous model and photographer, poses a model at Cypress Gardens, 1952.  The background was painted, the sand was real.  Hundreds of photographers were there for the program.”  LS

Bunny Yeager started out as a model then switched to being a photographer, gaining fame as the only female pin-up photographer of the 50’s. She was based in Miami, Florida and may be best known for her photographs of model Bettie Page shot in the mid 1950’s in Miami.  One of Yeager’s photographs of Page was purchased and published by Playboy in 1954, putting both photographer and model in the national spotlight.  Yeager was born in 1929 and died May 25, 2014 at the age of 85.

Tags: 006018, Bettie Page, Bunny Yeager, cheesecake, Cypress Gardens, historic photography, model, photographer, pin-up, posing, vintage photograph

A Gator Bowl Queen from the 1950’s.  I’m sure someone out there knows the name of these lovely ladies and would like to share them with the rest of us.

I spoke with Gator Bowl Association President and CEO Rick Catlett about the history of the Gator Bowl queens.  The game dates back to 1946 and I would guess the tradition of the queen goes back pretty far as well but according to Catlett the royal line ended shortly after he took over the organization in 1993.  “Beauty pageants got to be difficult in the 1990’s and we had a contestant that did not win make a legal challenge against the association.”  At that point lawyers became involved and Catlett decided “it’s just not worth it” and Gator Bowl royalty became another part of Jacksonville’s history.

Tags: 009154, Flowers, Football, gator bowl, historic photography, pageant, queen, Rick Catlett, roses, sports, vintage photograph, women

Bathing Beauty and Photographer on the beach by Virgil Deane.  The print is showing a little age but the image is wonderful!

Vintage Jacksonville recently received a packing box with hundreds of prints of photographs by Beaches photographer Virgil Deane from a Jacksonville resident who saved them from a trip to the dump when they spotted someone carrying the boxes of prints to the curb for the garbage pick up.  Deane was a contemporary of Loyd Sandgren and had his studio in Jacksonville Beach where he worked from the early 1940’s through the late 1980’s photographing the major and minor events of life at the beaches while Loyd was working out of his series of downtown Jacksonville studios.  They were both friends and there are a number of photographs of Deane in professional and social settings in the Loyd Sandgren collection.  The good news is that Deane was very organized with his work and upon his passing in 1999 his collection of negatives and prints were donated to the Beaches Historical Society for their archive. I’ve only glanced at a small portion of the contents of the box I was given but at first glance there is a mix of social events, group photographs, activity at Fletcher High School, pictures of the Jacksonville Beach Seabirds baseball team and scenes around the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club from the 40’s and 50’s.  Like the work of Loyd Sandgren, they were documents of everyday life that have become precious historic documents with the passing of time. I don’t yet know what I will be doing with the prints.  I promised to give them a good home once I finally see what I have in hand but in the interim I will share some of the work with you on Vintage Jacksonville.  Enjoy!

Flyer advertising stock photography for sale by Virgil Deane from December of 1953.

Tags: advertising, bathing beauty, Beaches Historical Society, historic photography, jacksonville beach, photographer, vintage photograph, virgil deane

A random image from one of Loyd Sandgren’s Theatre albums.  This image is in the same category as the photo of a man balancing on a chair.  I don’t know what it is about but I like it!

Tags: acting, crouch, crouching, historic photography, jump, jumping, man, stage, theatre, vintage photograph, woman

“This is what the old Jones Business College looked like in 1947.  Note the sign on top of the building, rates for the hotel started at $1.50.  This is looking North on Hogan St. from Bay Street.  The background was the Seminole Hotel.”  LS

The Hotel Seminole is the largest building in the frame and sat on the corner of Forsyth and Hogan Streets.  Designed by Henry Klutho, it opened for business in 1910 and operated until 1967.  It was finally demolished in 1974.  The Bank of America tower now occupies the block of downtown Jacksonville seen in this photograph.

Tags: advertising, Bank of America, Bay Street, cars, crystal cafe, downtown, Forsyth Street, historic photography, hogan street, hotel, Hotel Andrew Jackson, Jones Business College, seminole hotel, vintage photograph

A promotional photo from a play production at the Little Theatre in San Marco.  According to Loyd Sandgren’s notes he shot most of the promotional photos for the Little Theatre during the 1950’s.  There are two albums full of these images in the Loyd Sandgren collection, a few have some names hand written on the back of the prints but for the most part, there is no information about the production he photographed or the people in the photographs.  Not being from a thespian background the only one I recognized was from a production of The Wizard Of Oz so I welcome enlightenment from the Vintage Jacksonville fans to fill in the blanks.

Tags: dress, fashion, historic photograph, Little Theatre, play, production, promotional photograph, San Marco, stage, theatre, vintage photography, women

According to Loyd Sandgren’s note this bridge crossed the Suwanne River somewhere in Putnam County, FL. but after blowing up the detail I could read the small sign over the big “Way Down Upon The Suwannee River” sign to discover that it was the Hillman Bridge in Madison County along US 90 in the now ghost town of Ellaville, Florida.  The bridge was built in the the mid 1920’s as part of a federal aid project. Another image in the Florida State Archives is uncredited but was probably also shot by Loyd when he worked for the Department of Commerce after leaving the Navy.

Tags: bridge, Department of Commerce, Ellaville, Hillman Bridge, historic photography, Madison County, rail bridge, river, Suwannee River, train, vintage photograph

As a commercial photographer Loyd Sandgren took on the full spectrum of paying jobs to survive including shooting weddings.  There are over a dozen albums full of random and anonymous photos from wedding shoots spanning the late 1940’s through the 1960’s in the Loyd Sandgren Collection.  These are only the prints that survived so there is no telling how many Jacksonville resident’s weddings he photographed over his career.  This is work that I have not spent much time looking through but I recently sat down with a few of the volumes and was struck by how interesting they were as historical documents. These were events to be documented, before the days when everyone had a camera.  Most of his shooting was done with a large format 4X5 camera which made each exposure of film a production.  The subjects presented themselves as they wanted to be seen by the world and the photographer tried to show them in the most flattering light.  As I flipped through the photographs I was struck by the range of moods, from serious to silly that he captured.  There is such a variety of different environments where the photos were taken. Grand homes to simple church sanctuaries with a small handful of family and friends in attendance served as the backdrops for the brides, grooms and their family.  The collection of images is a virtual wedding style collection spanning thirty years of fashion.  It reminded me again why Loyd’s work has fascinated me since I first met him in the late 1990’s and why I value photographs as historical documents.  Photographs capture a specific, ordinary moment in time that becomes extraordinary with the passage of time.

This pair of images really caught my attention.  The bride and groom look like children, the family for the most part looks happy and proud with the exception of a couple of bored looking teens in the mix.  There were no notes left with these images so I have know way of knowing the specifics but you could write a book based on the faces and interactions of the subjects in the photographs.  I hope someone in the crowd recognizes themselves and will fill us in on the people in these photographs.  Until then, we are left to our imaginations.

Tags: bride, church, family, formal, groom, historic photograph, men, vintage photography, wedding, wedding dress, women