San Francisco, 1920. "Haynes touring car leaving garage." Riding on Gruss Air Springs. 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.

August 1959. "Vermont Country Store, Weston Common, Windsor County, Vermont. Building dates to 1828. Typical early country store still serving its original function, but filled with more merchandise than it would have originally had and now a popular tourist attraction." Photo by Ned Goode for the Historical American Buildings Survey, National Park Service. View full size.

Main Street, USA in Disneyland, that is, where my friend has captured me on Kodachrome with bell-bottoms billowing and armed with Super-8 camera. I didn't know this photo existed until a few days ago when he and I discovered a cache of slides in a forgotten box at his place. In fact, I'd totally forgotten we'd taken this Southern California road trip at all. Much to his amusement. View full size.

Port Huron, Michigan, circa 1908. "Steamers at pier." At right, the sidewheeler City of Alpena. 8x10 glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co. View full size.

        19th-century cog railway to the highest peak in the Northeast.

New Hampshire circa 1906. "Base station, Mount Washington Railway, White Mountains." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative. View full size.

Continuing our visit to Takoma Park, Maryland, circa 1895, we find Helen and Willard Douglas taking their ease Snoopy-style at the family compound, which seems to be equipped with accommodations for poultry as well as laundry. 5x7 glass negative by Edward M. Douglas. View full size.

Our third visit with the Douglas family in Takoma Park, Maryland: Zilpha Minnie Childs Douglas (1859-1960) and her children Helen (1885-1987) and Willard (1887?-1960). The photographer was Edward Morehouse Douglas (1855-1932). It's interesting to note that the ladies here lived to be centenarians. View full size.

The Takoma Park, Maryland, home of Edward M. Douglas, wife Zilpha and their children Helen and Willard. 5x7 glass negative by Mr. Douglas, donated by to us his great-grandson Steve and scanned by Shorpy. Steve tells us the house was torn down in the 1960s to make way for a nursing home. View full size.

Helen Douglas and her brother Willard are the subjects in the first of eight glass plates donated to Shorpy by the great-grandson of Edward Douglas (1857-1936), a U.S. Geological Survey employee who snapped these photos of his kids around 1895 at their home in the Washington suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland. Let's all thank Steve King for his generous and fascinating gift! View full size.

January 1941. "Trailer park in Sarasota, Florida." A baby bungalow nestled in nasturtiums. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. View full size.

August 1941. "Main Street. Sheridan, Wyoming." An oasis of Western watering holes. Medium format negative by Marion Post Wolcott. View full size.

New York circa 1905. "Tenement courtyard." Rear Window: The Prequel. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

No, Tommie's not the guy with the anchor up ... well, with the anchor. That's me. Tiburon is a Marin County town on San Francisco Bay, and Tiburon Tommie's was a Chinese restaurant with a decor and cocktail selection that today would be called Tiki. Opened about 1955 by Tommie Cox and former Trader Vic's employee Johnnie Won, it closed around 1997 and today exists only in the warm nostalgic memories of older Marinites. This is the bay side of the building, which itself no longer exists. Existing was something that I didn't know this slide did until a couple days ago, when my friend who took it in 1969 and I were rooting around the spare room of his house and found a bunch of slides he'd forgotten about. This one's a 126 Ektachrome taken with a Kodak Instamatic. I recognized those aluminum sticks in the lower right corner as legs of my tripod, so I must have been taking Super-8 movies that day. View full size.

Circa 1908. "Elks Temple (Eureka Club), Clinton Avenue North, Rochester, N.Y." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

California circa 1919. "Marmon touring car at Yosemite." Latest entrant in the Shorpy Concours of Discontinued Conveyances. 6½ x 8½ inch glass negative, originally from the Wyland Stanley collection. View full size.