Mystery Illustration 81

Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 20, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Movies, Twentieth Century

How We Do Things in Kansas

Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 19, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Agriculture, Enlargements, Miniatures, and Other Matters of Scale, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Horticulture and Gardens, Humor, Regionalism, Surrealism, Twentieth Century, Postal Services

The Lobster Waitresses of Hackney’s

Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 09, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Culture and Civilization, Food, Forgotten Figures and Where Are They Now?, Regionalism, Twentieth Century

Hostetter’s Bitters

Hostetter's "Celebrated" Bitters was a nostrum developed by Dr. Jacob Hostetter of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His son, David Hostetter, put the formula into large scale production in 1853 and it soon became a national best-seller. During the Civil War, Dr. J. Hostetter's Stomach Bitters was sold to soldiers as "a positive protective against the fatal maladies of the Southern swamps, and the poisonous tendency of the impure rivers and bayous." The original formula was about 47% alcohol -- 94 Proof! The amount of alcohol was so high that it was served in Alaskan saloons by the glass. Hostetter sweetened the alcohol with sugar to which he added a few aromatic oils (anise, coriander, etc.) and vegetable bitters (cinchona, gentian, etc.) to give it a medicinal flavor. From 1954 to 1958, when it was no longer marketed, the product was known as Hostetter Tonic.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 21, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Advertising, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Alcohol

Alfred Latell, Animal Impersonator

Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 18, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Animals, Anthropomorphism, Costumes and Masks, Entertainment, Movies, Twentieth Century

Canadian Prime Minister Consults Ghost Dogs

William Lyon MacKenzie King (1874-1950), Canada’s 10th and longest serving Prime Minister was a devoted dog owner in life and in death.While active in politics King had an achingly dull public image, which was certainly at odds with the goings-on in his private life. What the Canadian populace wasn’t aware of was his séances, his consultations with spiritual mediums, table-rapping sessions, tea-leaf readings and communing with the spirits of the likes of former PM Wilfrid Laurier, his long-deceased mother, and of course his dear ghost dog, Pat. That he owned and frequently used both a Ouija board and a crystal ball was published in Time Magazine in 1953, news that shocked the nation. Rampant rumours circulated about King’s oddities, some true, most false. That King had Pat stuffed by a taxidermist so that the little dog would always be by his side turned out to be untrue. King’s detailed diary entries, published after his death in 1950 revealed that King consulted the dead Pats during these séance sessions in manners of international political policy, conscription, and Liberal Party Leadership.

King, obsessed with death and the afterlife, often expressed his wish to communicate with the living after he died, just as he hoped to be reunited forever in the spirit world with his three Pats; “we shall all be together in the Beyond,” he wrote, “of that I am perfectly sure”.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 30, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Communications, Eccentrics, Government, Officials, New Age, Paranormal, Dogs, Twentieth Century

Joe E. Lewis, Al Capone’s Favorite Entertainer

In Chicago in 1927, Lewis refused the request of Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn (an Al Capone lieutenant) to renew a contract that would have bound him to sing and perform at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, which was partly owned by Capone. After refusing, because he had been offered more money by a rival gang to appear at their own club, "The New Rendezvous", he was assaulted in his 10th floor Commonwealth Hotel room, in November 1927, by three enforcers sent by McGurn. The enforcers, who included Sam Giancana and Leonard "Needles" Gianola, mutilated Lewis (his throat and tongue were cut) and left him for dead.[2] It took him several years to be able to speak again.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 18, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Scary Criminals, Comedians, Twentieth Century

Homer Tate

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 17, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Eccentrics, Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Hobbies and DIY, Human Marvels, Twentieth Century, Fictional Monsters

Charles Fitzgerald, Daredevil

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 05, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, Twentieth Century

Home for Incurables

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 03, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Architecture, Charities and Philanthropy, History, Medicine, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century