After getting a new scanner several years ago to scan some old slides my grandparents had, I picked up several batches of slides from Goodwill and eBay. I'm not sure why these commonly wind up at places like that but many seem to ultimately have come from estate sales. Maybe family members just don't know what to do with them or don't care. I've seen them advertised as being for crafts so maybe they are commonly used for that purpose. I was more interested in the actual contents. Each slide is a little slice of history from a particular time and place. These pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. There are thousands of these slides. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here mainly because I find them an interesting way to look back at the past.
Unfortunately, the photos from this batch don't seem to generally have dates stamped on them like most of the previous batches I've gone through. However, they generally seem to be from the 1950s and 1960s. Like some of the previous batches, this one came from eBay and I don't know much about the origins of these photos other than that.
Batch = A bunch of slides I bought in a single purchase. Usually they are from the same ultimate origin but not necessarily. Typically, a batch will have 100s or even 1000s of slides.
Set = Subset of a batch. A group of slides I scan together. There are normally four slides in one set because that's how many slides my scanner can scan at once. Likewise, a post will typically have one set of fours slides. Organizationally, it's just the easiest way for me to handle things.
These were all scanned with an Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner.
These photos, like other recent sets, were likely taken circa 1959. Most of these were taken in the Central Florida area.
The first photo features the Sea Missile Motel. This was a motel in Cocoa Beach. There were many rocket, missile, and space themed motels due to the presence of Cape Canaveral and Patrick Air Force (now Space Force) bases and predecessors. It was a time of massive growth in the space industry. The same year this photo was taken, the Department of Defense transferred 5,000 personnel and the Missile Firing Laboratory to NASA to become the Launch Operations Directorate under NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. It was two years later when Kennedy set the goal of landing men on the moon.
The second photo was taken at Cypress Gardens during a water stunt show. This show went on for decades and in fact was just continued in the last month or two. This is a pretty neat shot with three skiers in the air having just launched from the ramp seen on the left side. The guy driving the boat seems to be looking at the camera.
The third photo was taken in a boat. I think this may have also been in the Cocoa Beach area with one of the causeways in the area visible in front of the boat. I'm not sure what the woman driving is holding. A map maybe? There is a tag on the keychain that says something like "Warn Motor Is Not Running". Maybe this was a rental.
The last photo is an informational display on chemical energy. This was likely taken at the American Museum of Atomic Energy (now the American Museum of Science and Energy) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
See the previous post in this series here.
The entire batch that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here. This also includes higher resolution versions and versions with post processing.
Check out some of my other recent posts:
Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja (Arcade, 1988)
@darth-azrael/bad-dudes-vs-dragonninja-arcade
Vintage Photos - Lot 3 (289-292)
@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-3-289
Personal Computer News (January 19th, 1985)
@darth-azrael/personal-computer-news-january-19th
Vintage Photos - Lot 3 (285-288)
@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-3-285
Computer Shopper (March 2001)
@darth-azrael/computer-shopper-march-2001
Check out my other Social Media haunts (though most content is links to stuff I posted on Hive or reposts of stuff originally posted on Hive):
Wordpress: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darth-azrael
X: https://x.com/Darth_Azrael
Blogger: https://megalextoria.blogspot.com/
Odyssee: https://odysee.com/@Megalextoria:b
Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-2385054
Daily Motion: https://www.dailymotion.com/Megalextoria
Books I am reading or have recently read:
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson
Total Power by Vince Flynn
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