Vanishing Postcards3 Nov 2022

11. Postcards from Las Vegas, NM and Winslow, AZ - "The Footprints of Fred Harvey"

Michael Wallis has famously said that Route 66 is for travelers, not tourists. As he tells it, "tourists like the familiar, tend to gawk at culture from afar, and generally like to cram as much into their agendas as possible provided it’s cheap, safe and by all means comfortable. Travelers, on the other hand, hanker for the hidden places and in making new discoveries often discover a thing or two about themselves." At the same time, it merits acknowledgement that this ethos is perhaps easy to embrace today because, "the friendly skies" notwithstanding, travel is generally as comfortable and easy as it's ever been. There are many forces and people responsible for bringing us to this point, but in America, and most specifically the American West, perhaps the first to lay the groundwork was restaurant and hotel magnate, Fred Harvey. His is a name that Hollywood and Judy Garland immortalized in a 1946 musical, and one that still today has a way of popping up along Route 66’s western stretch. In this episode, through visits to two of Fred Harvey's surviving properties, and conversations with author Stephen Fried and surviving Harvey Girl Beverly Ireland, we'll learn a little about the man behind the name, and how the brand and empire he created not only elevated outlaw country, but helped give us Americans an appreciation for our own culture in the process.

Stephen Fried - "Appetite for America"

Hotel Castaneda

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Episoder(50)

Postcard from Springfield, IL - The Cycles of Shea’s

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Postcard from Springfield, IL - Decades at The Cozy Dog Drive-In

Officially opened in 1949, Springfield's Cozy Dog Drive-In claims to be the home of the first batter-fried hot dog on a stick, and having born witness to over seventy years of transitions, ranks among...

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5. Postcard from Laredo - "Two Cities, One People"

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4. Postcard from South Texas - "Communion through Cabrito"

The author and folklorist J Frank Dobie once said, "The boundaries of culture and rainfall never follow survey lines." This is certainly true of Dobie's native south Texas, which is a place shaped by ...

4 Mai 202323min

3. Postcard from Rockport - "Blessed Egg Rolls by the Bay”

The third most spoken language in Texas behind English and Spanish is Vietnamese. This is especially evident in Houston, a metropolis that's home to more than 120,000 residents of Indo Chinese descent...

27 Apr 202324min

2. Postcard from Galveston - "Spaghetti, Sausage and a Slice of Sicily”

Once perhaps the greatest town of significance between New Orleans and San Francisco, Galveston's fortunes shifted following the Great Storm of 1900, and today its population doesn't even rank in the ...

20 Apr 202324min

1. Postcard from Serbin - "Noodles in a New Nation"

The Central Texas hamlet of Serbin sits off a country road, about an hour past Austin. It was last included in the census over twenty years ago when its population numbered a mere thirty-seven. Yet, i...

13 Apr 202323min

Introducing - "Travel Tales by Afar"

As a special bonus, we are honored to share our space and introduce you to Travel Tales by Afar. On Travel Tales by AFAR, fascinating people share their stories of life-changing travel, from novelist...

23 Feb 202329min