Found Photos Friday: 1960s Americana 1

Back in January, I picked up a box of more than 300 slides and some 8mm videos. I had the videos digitized (they're what's in this post) and found I recognized some of the places in them. Surely enough, these movies I had bought at an antique store here, literally two miles from my home, had partially been filmed in Chicagoland. Though I had not been to the specific places in them, I found I recognized them like a reader recognizes a new word in his native tongue or a musician recognizes the notes and melodies in a different key system.

As I write this, I haven't yet figured out which Chicago suburb the movies and family called home. I have figured out it was Illinois and I have a list of possible cities narrowed down to about five, but I'm not certain enough yet. I don't know why I'm captivated by these, other than the fact they shows my native city from the late 1940s to mid 1960s. In this 15-year span, the videos and photos show the same people growing from children into adults and moving from Chicago to Tucson to Walnut Creek, California.

For this first installment, I'll post a few videos. The first is a newsreel from 1937. It's startlingly prescient about World War II. The latter are just home movies. I've wondered, in digitizing the slides, editing the images, and watching the videos a couple of times, whose estate sale these same from.

Dunes 1951. The video of the damages property is pretty fascinating. I knew of a places called The Dunes near Zion, Illinois, and there are other places around Lake Michigan called The Dunes. I'm not certain if this is one of them or somewhere else, perhaps in Florida.

Two of the videos take place in Florida. This is one of them and I like it because of the old car at 1:30 and the monkeys at 2:30. Also, there's a sign for Spook Hill, at 1:30, and you can see the car appearing to roll up a hill. Spook Hill is one of those places like The Mystery Spot at Wisconsin Dells or The Mystery Spot in San Jose, California. It's in Lake Wales, I think, and since it was around in at least 1952, it must be one of the older 'attractions' in Florida.