Alan Mays' photos

A turkeys photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Caption on the front of this real photo postcard: "Fry Bros. Turkey Ranch & Dining Rooms, 20 miles north of Williamsport, Pa., on Route 15. Caulkins, T-14." A restaurant with its own turkey farm, the Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch and Dining Rooms opened for business near Trout Run, Pennsylvania, in 1939. Located along U.S. Route 15 on Steam Valley Mountain, it's situated about 20 miles north of the city of Williamsport and about 100 miles north of Harrisburg, the state capital. The restaurant celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2014 and is still known today as the Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch . Although the owners serve about 100,000 customers a year, they no longer raise their own turkeys. I stopped at the restaurant in 2006 while traveling north to New York State, and I had a tasty meal of turkey and waffles there. It was so good that I had to stop again for some more turkey and waffles on the way back. For some real photo postcards showing the restaurant in the 1940s or 1950s and some of my own photos from 2006, see my Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch Restaurant album.

Billboard: "The Home of Fry Bros. Turkey Ranch & Dining Rooms. Turkey dinners, $1.25. 24 hour diner service. Tourist home." Caption: "Caulkins, T-58." Here's a 2006 view taken from about the same vantage point (below). The billboard is no longer there, unfortunately.

Caption: "Fry Bros. Turkey Ranch & Diner on Rt 15, 20 miles no. of Williamsport, Pa. Caulkins Photo, Morris, Penna. T-106." A real photo postcard view (circa 1940s-1950s) of what is now called the Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch Restaurant. There are no crowds of customers in my photo of the same scene in 2006 (see below), but the service station is still there, and I believe that the building in the background--hidden behind a new extension to the front of the restaurant--is still there, too.

The Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch Restaurant is located along the southbound side of busy U.S. Route 15. See below for a real photo postcard that shows how the restaurant looked in the 1940s or 1950s. As I took photos of the restaurant when I visited in 2006, I had to wait for numerous tractor-trailer trucks to pass by in order to get a clear shot of the restaurant. Note the two trucks parked near the Citgo gas pumps in the background of the photo above, and see two examples of the many trucks that noisily whizzed past (see photos below).

The Fry Brother Turkey Ranch Restaurant in a photo taken in 2006 (above) and in a real photo postcard dating to the 1940s or 1950s (below).

A tractor-trailer truck travels past the Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch Restaurant, which is located along the southbound side of busy U.S. Route 15. The back of a sign is visible on the right-hand side of this photo. For the front of the sign , see below:

Many tractor-trailer trucks travel past the Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch Restaurant, which is located along the southbound side of busy U.S. Route 15. See below for another truck.

"Allegheny Mt. Range, Susquehanna Trail, Elevation 1704 feet, U.S. Route 15." This sign stands across the road from the Fry Brothers Turkey Ranch Restaurant, which is situated atop Steam Valley Mountain, part of the Allegheny Mountain Range in Pennsylvania. The restaurant is located along U.S. Route 15 , a busy north-south highway. For most of its length, Route 15 coincides with the path of the old Susquehanna Trail , which was an auto trail that ran from Washington, D.C., to Niagara Falls, New York. Although it's no longer an official designation, the "Susquehanna Trail" is still widely used as a name for roads, businesses, and places. The back of this sign is visible in another photo I took of a truck passing by the restaurant (see below).

"Thanksgiving Day. I'm a firm believer in self-protection."

Interested in vintage magazines? Check out the Cover of a Magazine group, which is now administered by Smiley Derleth and yours truly. Read more about it here: Welcome to Cover of a Magazine! The cover of this May 1959 issue of Flying Saucers: The Magazine of Space Conquest has retained its pleasant garishness even after the passage of fifty-five years. The illustration, a scene from the 1950 movie Destination Moon , shows astronauts in their spacecraft during their perilous journey to and from the moon (I believe that the one fellow is actually dispensing a space sickness pill, although it looks like he's performing dental work). Raymond A. Palmer , who authored books on flying saucers and edited Amazing Stories and Fate magazines, was also the editor of Flying Saucers .

"Reading Steamboat Co., this ticket is good for one passage from Reading to High's Grove. Good for this day only. Reading Steamboat Co. Return ticket from High's Grove to Reading." The Reading Steamboat Company operated steamboats on the Schuylkill River in the city of Reading, Pennsylvania, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A front-page article in the Reading Eagle newspaper for Monday, August 3, 1903, for instance, included this brief report about company operations: "Steamboat Trips. The Reading Steamboat Co. made trips with its steamboat, 'The City of Reading,' on the Schuylkill [River] between Hain's and Kissinger's locks Sunday [August 2], and carried hundreds of passengers. The round trip was 1½ miles. The vessel will ply between the same points next Sunday."

"Thank you! Each loaf of Sunbeam you buy is a vote for me. I'm in line for prizes in the big contest if you keep backing me. ________ (sig.) Your Sunbeam Salesman." Hat: "Sunbeam Energy Bread." As Wikipedia explains, " Sunbeam Bread is a franchised brand of white bread, rolls, and other baked goods owned by the Quality Bakers of America cooperative. The bread products are produced and distributed by regional bakeries....The brand was launched in 1942 and was first marketed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." In the 1950s and 1960s, Quality Bakers ran contests with cars as prizes for the salesmen who handled Sunbeam and its other brands of bread. This poster, which dates to 1960, was probably distributed to grocery stores.