Cottage Home Service

Hired from Gulf Oil in late 1925 to lead the Pure Oil Company's new marketing construction department, architect Carl A. Peterson was charged with creating a structure distinct and recognizable, utilizing Pure Oil's blue and white corporate livery prominently in his design, making their corporate affiliation obvious from a distance. His goal was to harmonize with residential neighborhoods that opposed flashy and brightly colored industrial structures.

Pure Oil unveiled Peterson's final design in 1927, which he called the "English cottage." It featured a design reminiscent of private homes in an effort to make the stations comfortable for motorists and incorporated many aspects of the popular Tudor Revival architecture of the time. These included homey details such as chimneys, window shutters, and flowerboxes. The brick walls of the building were white, and the roof was covered in an expensive, non-fading, gloss blue tile. 
What now seems quite amusing in self-service times, imagine this service attendant's helpful comment: "This pipe fits behind that little door on the driver's side of your car. It's difficult, pal. That's why I do it for you."

What now seems quite amusing in self-service times, imagine this service attendant's helpful comment: "This pipe fits behind that little door on the driver's side of your car. It's difficult, pal. That's why I do it for you."

Peterson oversaw and designed many variations on his initial design to account for economic, geographic, and other regional differences. The English cottage became an icon for the company, with more constructed into the 1930s. Pure Oil produced popular birdhouses and radios designed to look like their stations. A half-size replica produced for the 1933 World's Fair was a top attraction. With Pure Oil's merger with Union Oil Company of California (Unocal) in 1965,  the English cottage style became a thing of the past. However, many have been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Multi-faceted Remington Rand

Remington Rand, Inc. originated from E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York, which began manufacturing sewing machines in 1873 and later acquired the rights to produce typewriters from inventor Christopher Latham Sholes in 1876. The Remington No. 1 was the first typewriter to use the QWERTY keyboard layout. The company exhibited its typewriters at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and expanded globally during the 1880s. The company was formed in 1927 through the merger of the Remington Typewriter Company and the Rand Kardex Bureau, Inc. A division of Remington Rand also made electric razors beginning in 1937.

Remington Rand merged with Sperry Corporation in 1955 to become Sperry Rand. It manufactured the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers, the first commercial computer system, initially for the U.S. Census Bureau. Along this same timeline, they manufactured modular office furniture under the name Remington Rand Modular Furniture. The Sperry Corporation sold the division in 1979 to Victor Kiam, who became the company spokesman. His line, "I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company," became a memorable advertising slogan of the early 1980s. Sperry later merged with Burroughs Corporation in 1986 to become Unisys. Remington Products was sold to the battery manufacturer Rayovac in 2003 (now part of Spectrum Brands). 

Air Show Thrill Seeker

In late 1926, Lloyd Stearman, Fred Hoyt, and George Lyle chartered Stearman Aircraft, Inc., with fabrication in Venice, California, with final assembly and test flights taking place at Clover Field, modern-day Santa Monica Airport. Established in 1927, Stearman Aircraft Corporation had a vital role in the fields of military and general aviation. Wichita, Kansas, was a hub for aircraft manufacturing of the era, and Stearman moved his company there by the late 1930s, now the site of Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. Stearman operated as a Boeing division until September 1941, when it was redesignated the Wichita Division, Boeing Aircraft Company.

Arguably, the most famous Stearman was the Model 75 (Navy PT-17), introduced in the early 1930s. More than 10,600 were built. The biplane became the primary trainer for both the United States Army Air Corps and the United States Navy through the 1940s. In the immediate postwar years, they became trusted crop dusters, the ubiquitous aerobatic performer, and the ride for wing walkers at air shows. Many by this time had installed a larger Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior engine and a constant-speed propeller to increase the maximum takeoff weight and climb performance. Many Stearmans are still active today on the air show circuit.

Indianapolis Movers

Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, Bekins Van Lines, Inc. is the oldest, currently operating, and the first to specialize in moving household goods in the United States and North America. Founded by brothers John Bekius and Martin (Bekius) Bekins in 1891, Bekins began operations in Sioux City, Iowa, with just three horse-drawn vans and twelve employees. In 1894, Martin Bekins brought the business to Los Angeles.  Bekins also offers special commodities and logistic services with the United States Military being one of their largest customers. In 2012, Wheaton Van Lines became the parent company of Bekins.

Mayflower was founded in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1927 by trucker Conrad M. Gentry, formerly of Red Ball Transit Company, and International Harvester truck salesman Don F. Kenworthy. Starting with only two trucks, the business topped $500,000 by 1932 despite the Great Depression. Mayflower became the first trucking company in the industry to receive operating rights in all forty-eight states in 1940. Mayflower emerged from a 1991 bankruptcy one year later. The Unigroup, an American moving company based in Fenton, Missouri, purchased Mayflower in 1995 and moved its headquarters to the St. Louis suburb.

Spark Of A Champion

Albert Champion (1878-1927), was a French-born bicycle racing champion with major wins in Paris in 1889 and 1904. After retiring from competitive cycling in 1905, he incorporated the Albert Champion Company in Boston, Massachusetts to make porcelain spark plugs and import French electrical parts and components made by the Nieuport aircraft company. Two years later, the Champion name was stamped on the side. He incorporated the Champion Ignition Company in Lansing, Michigan in October 1908. General Motors founder, William Durant, was impressed with the spark plugs and persuaded him to move to Flint and supply his spark plugs for Buick automobiles.

In 1922, he changed the name to AC Spark Plug Company, utilizing his initials, to settle out of court with his original partners in the Albert Champion Company. In May of 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew his Spirit of St. Louis nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris, France, powered by AC Spark Plugs. Champion died in October of that same year while vacationing in Paris. Today, his initials survive as ACDelco (owned by General Motors) and Champion spark plugs sold by the Federal-Mogul Corporation.

Note: In the 1961 advertisement above, a family has just gotten gas for their 1959 Chevrolet when the service station attendant brings out a spark plug. It sounds to him like they need a new one. He will know better once he gets under the hood, but it is best to replace all of them simultaneously. Not happy about the sales pitch, the son throws a 1961 Oldsmobile promotional model at the attendant's head.

An Influential Illustrator

Bob Peak (1927-1992) was an award-winning American illustrator whose mixed media, sketchy style contributed thirty years to the film industry. He was famous for his many cover illustrations for TV Guide, other magazine advertisements, USPS stamps, and portraits.

What about Bob.

Television's Leon Friedman

Lee Philips (Leon Friedman, 1927- 1999) was a prolific American actor and film and television director. The New York City-born Philips' acting career started on Broadway, which led to a starring role in the film adaptation of Peyton Place. The handsome actor possessed versatility and intensity in his roles. His most visible presence was in television, guest-starring in numerous popular shows from the early Fifties through the Seventies. His credits include The Fugitive, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and I Spy, among many others. He guest-starred in a few series that he would also direct at some point. His twelve appearances as the title character in 1959's The Further Adventures of Ellery Queen were his longest. 

By the early to mid-Sixties, his career included directing, with a wide range of television credits including Peyton Place, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Room 222, and The Waltons, to name a few. As a director, Philips and Dick Van Dyke worked together numerous times, beginning with The Dick Van Dyke Show, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, and Diagnosis Murder. By far his longest tenure as director was his sixty episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. In between, he directed several television movies throughout the Seventies and Eighties.

Nebraska's Official Soft Drink

Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins (1889-1961) in Hastings, Nebraska in 1927. As a boy working in his family’s general store, Perkins became interested in a new powdered dessert mix named Jell-O and persuaded his father to carry it in the store. Kool-Aid's predecessor was called Fruit Smack, a bottled soft drink concentrate in six flavors. All of Perkin's experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. To reduce shipping costs, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack, leaving only a powder. Perkins moved his production to Chicago in 1931 and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953. A yearly summer festival in Hastings celebrates with Kool-Aid Days on the second weekend in August in honor of their city's claim to fame. It is Nebraska's official soft drink.

Additional Kool-Aid details can be found here.

Broadcast Pioneers

John Chancellor (1927-1996) was an American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC, serving as anchor of the NBC Nightly News from 1970 to 1982. He was noted for his comforting voice and on-air professionalism.

The Chicago-born Chancellor dropped out of high school and soon enlisted in the Army, serving in a public relations unit during World War II. He started his career in local television as a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times.  He replaced Dave Garroway as host of NBC's Today program for just over a year but was not happy with the "soft news" of the program. Chancellor later became a correspondent on NBC's, Huntley-Brinkley Report. He garnered a role as a political correspondent for NBC News along with Frank McGee, Edwin Newman, and Sander Vanocur. From 1971 to 1976, Chancellor became the sole NBC weeknight anchor. Although he was a respected and well-spoken journalist, Chancellor's broadcast ratings were overtaken by CBS's Walter Cronkite in the 1970s. Although no longer the anchor by 1982, Chancellor remained on NBC Nightly News, providing editorial commentaries until his retirement in 1993.

Note: Chancellor has the distinction of creating the idea of using red and blue colors to represent the states won by a Republican or Democrat during presidential elections. He also suggested to his NBC engineers that they create a large electronic map of the United States with its ability to light up the appropriate state won by either candidate.

When the Uniform Fits

William Boyett (1927-2004) was an American actor best known for his television roles in law enforcement dramas on television. Aside from a handful of uncredited film roles early in his career, he was a mainstay of television from the 1950s through the 1990s. The handsome actor was known for his tight, frontal baritone vocal delivery and looking right at home in a uniform.

Harry William Boyett was born in Akron, Ohio, and showed an interest in theater at a young age. He won a Shakespeare competition in high school, which led to acting jobs in radio. After his service in the Navy during World War II, he performed on the stage in both New York City and Los Angeles. By the mid-Fifties, his career was jump-started with recurring roles in over sixty-five episodes of Highway Patrol. Boyett also portrayed a policeman in such diverse series as Bat Masterson; Batman; and Star Trek: The Next Generation. He had roles on Sea Hunt in ten episodes, eight episodes of Perry Mason, and nine episodes of Dragnet 1967. But by far his most visible role was as Sgt. "Mac" MacDonald on 129 episodes of Adam 12.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, Boyett found steady work on such diverse series as Laramie, I Spy, The Andy Griffith Show, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, The Rockford Files, Gunsmoke, Emergency!, Knight Rider, Murphy Brown, and Night Court. Boyett's final visible role, not surprisingly as a desk sergeant, ended his career on a low note in the direct-to-video live-action comedy, Theodore Rex (1995).

Shrine of Democracy

The Lakota tribe's symbolism referred to the now famous granite rock formation as "Six Grandfathers," which symbolized deities personified in six directions: north, south, east, west, above (sky), and below (earth). The mountain never had an official name until after 1877. New York attorney Charles E. Rushmore visited the Black Hills to confirm the Harney Peak Tin Company's land claims. His South Dakota guide suggested it be named after Rushmore. The carving was the idea of Doane Robinson, a historian for the state of South Dakota. The concept and design evolved during the planning stages. Robinson originally wanted the sculpture to feature American West heroes, such as Lewis and Clark, their guide Sacagawea, Oglala Lakota chief Red Cloud, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Oglala Lakota chief Crazy Horse. Regardless of the subjects, controversy would have been inevitable as the land was never returned to the Sioux Nation. As so often happens throughout history, the "elite" in society institute their own ideals on how things should be run. 

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed the sculpture, referred to as the Shrine of Democracy, and oversaw the project's execution from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum. The impressive sculpture features the 60-foot-tall heads of four United States presidents chosen to represent the nation's birth, growth, development and preservation, respectively. The original design was to include some view of the torsos (see above model), but when funding ran out, the project ceased leaving only the faces. Mount Rushmore attracts over two million visitors annually.

The Airline of Firsts

During this month in 1927, the United States Post Office requested bids on a contract to deliver mail from Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba by mid-October. Pan American Airways, Incorporated was founded as a shell company by United States Army Air Corps officers Henry "Hap" Arnold, and Carl Spaatz. They drew up the prospectus for Pan American after they learned that German-owned Colombian air carrier SCADTA, hired a company in Delaware to obtain air mail contracts from the US government. A contract was awarded to a former World War I naval aviator, Juan Trippe, to fly mail between Key West to Havana. The airline’s first passenger service between these cities began the next year.

Pan American World Airways established seventeen firsts in airline travel, including the first transpacific flights (from San Francisco to Manila) in 1936, using the famous China Clipper; the first transatlantic flights from New York City to Lisbon in 1939, aboard the Yankee Clipper; the first round-the-world flights (New York to New York, eastbound) in 1947; the first transatlantic jet service in 1958 with the Boeing 707, and by 1970 the first airline to use the Boeing 747.

In the Jet Age, Pan American, now referred to simply as Pan Am, faced growing challenges as international travel grew and U.S. airlines deregulated in the late 1970s. It competed with airlines expanding into foreign markets from extensive domestic routes by acquiring National Airlines in 1980. It did little to invigorate the airline with Pan Am ending in bankruptcy by the end of 1991.

Read much more about Pan American at these sites: Pan Am or Simple Flying

Big Small Screen Presence

 

Tim O'Connor (1927-2018) was an American character actor known for his steady work in television until the 1990s. By far, O'Connor's 416 appearances as Elliot Carson on Peyton Place were his most appearances on a single show. Another well-known role was playing Dr. Elias Huer in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Other recurring roles were on Barnaby Jones, Dynasty, The Streets of San Francisco, Cannon and six episodes of The F.B.I. O'Connor's voice and physical presence allowed him to specialize in playing various officials, physicians, military men, and police officers. Like one of his peers, David Janssen, O'Connor made a bigger impact on the small screen than in films. O'Connor's film appearances were sparse. A few include The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972), Across 110th Street (1972), Sssssss (1973), and The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991). His last performance was in the film, Dreams Awake (2011) where he reunited with Erin Gray from their Buck Rogers series.

Fruit Smacked in Nebraska

 

Kool-Aid is an American brand of flavored drink mix invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. All of his experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. Its predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack, leaving only a powder; this powder was named Kool-Aid. In 1931, Perkins moved production to Chicago and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953. Currently, Kool-Aid is owned by Kraft Heinz. Strangely, the colors in Kool-Aid will stain, and hence the substance can be used as a dye for either hair or wool. A yearly summer festival called Kool-Aid Days falls on the second weekend in August in honor of Hasting's claim to fame. Kool-Aid is known as Nebraska's official soft drink. 

See Hastings Museum.

The Gem of Modern Industry

 

Catalin is a brand name for a thermosetting polymer developed and trademarked in 1927 by the American Catalin Corporation of New York City after the company acquired the patents for Bakelite. "The Gem of Modern Industry" according to period advertising, Catalin took things a step beyond Bakelite, making appealing plastics by adding color to a liquid resin that was cast in lead forms and allowed to slowly cool then polished to a fine sheen. This fact made Catalin more popular than other types of Bakelite for consumer products. Whereas Bakelite was used for items like insulators for electrical systems, black rotary dial telephones or handles on Deco-era toasters, Catalin was used for manufacturing colorful jewelry, clocks and radios that were labor-intensive processes cured with heat, then polished by hand into Art Deco designs. Like Bakelite, Catalin gives off a distinctive chemical odor when heated. Due to oxidation, older Catalin items darken in color and white discolors to yellow. This caused interesting effects in radio cabinets. Catalin items are widely collected today.

Note: The grips on actor John Wayne's iconic six-shooter, seen in every western from 1966 to 1969, were made of Catalin, not ivory, as often thought.

The Milk Man Is Here

 

Divco was a brand name of delivery trucks built and marketed in the United States. Divco is an acronym that stands for Detroit Industrial Vehicles COmpany. Divco became known for its multi-stop delivery trucks, particularly in use as home delivery vehicles by dairy producers. Established in 1924, Divco produced trucks of various sizes and job descriptions. The first Divco "Model A" were boxy, practical vehicles. The company was bought out by Continental Motors Company during the Great Depression, supplying most of the engines installed in Divco trucks. In 1936  Continental was acquired by Twin Coach, thus becoming Divco-Twin. The classic design pictured was introduced in 1937 featuring a welded all-steel van body and a snub-nosed hood, a model that was manufactured with almost no changes up to the end of the line in 1986. With most Divco trucks, controls allowed driving while standing, including throttle and brake mounted on the steering column.

Lindbergh Finishes Flight Tests

 

On this day in 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh completes his last series of flight tests of the Ryan NYP, N-X-211, Spirit of St. Louis before his transatlantic flight on May 20–21. Flying at 50 feet over San Diego Bay, he times the Spirit‘s flight from marker to marker with a stopwatch. After the speed runs, Lindbergh flies back to nearby Camp Kearney for load tests. Take-off distances are measured while increasing the fuel load in 50-gallon increments. Click image for a large view.