A Trip to Hastings (1947)

On Sunday, August 10th, 1947, Grandpa Ames took a trip up to Hastings, MN. I'm not sure who all went on the trip with him; the photo album offers no clues. Here are some photos from that trip.

August 10th, 1947 looks like it was a beautiful summer day...

This is a picture of the Spiral Bridge in Hastings. The bridge was built in 1895 with a spiral design to either slow down horse-drawn traffic from the other side of the river as it entered downtown or to gain the necessary elevation so the bridge could terminate in downtown instead of outside of town. I tend to think the idea that it was to slow down horse-drawn traffic seems a little far-fetched. In any case, by 1951 the bridge was rusted and in a poor state of repair. Due to weight restrictions, school buses had to stop on the far side of the river and kids had to walk over. That doesn't sound like much fun to me. The Spiral Bridge was torn down and replaced with a modern bridge in 1951, 4 years after this photo was taken.

The next two pictures where taken from the Spiral Bridge.

I really love old pictures of landmarks and everyday life. Grandpa's albums are full of this sort of stuff and I intend to scan these pictures along with pictures of relatives.

Old Family Photos

I hooked up Allison's scanner to my laptop and starting scanning some old family photos. My grandfather, Lawrence Ames, was an avid photographer and I have two albums full of old pictures that I'm going to work my way through. Here are the first of many.

This is a picture of my mom, Vonda Ames, in 1946. She would have been around 13 years old.

Here's a photo of my Grandpa Ames from 1945:

I think this is going to be a fun little project.