The Forties

The phrase "Best Location in the Nation," seems to have been coined in the 1940s. Still very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, it comes from the fact that Cleveland is 600 miles from 60% of the U.S. (and a good chunk of Canada).

The Cleveland Buckeyes were a Negro league baseball team and were the Negro Leagues Champions of 1945. *Design is officially licensed from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Beverly Park operated from 1945 to 1974 at the corner of Beverly Blvd. and La Cienega, the present home of the Beverly Center Mall. The Park was apparently inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland.??

Camp Washington??Chili is world famous and has been featured on The Travel Channel's Man v. Food Nation, CBS News, HGTV, and more. Founded in 1940 by Steve Andon and Fred Zannbus, it truly is an area favorite.

Established in 1942 as W83C, this legendary Chicago radio station changed its call letters several times before becoming WLUP "The Loop 97.9" in 1977. For the next 41 years it was one of the most popular and influential radio station's in America. It is...

Pro football in Miami dates back to 1946 and the Miami Seahawks who were charter members of the All-America Football Conference. They only lasted one season. Miami's then small population, combined with underfunded ownership doomed the team's stay in South Florida. In 1947 they moved...

The first team to be called the Charleston Senators played its first game in 1910. They lasted until 1916. In 1931, a new Senators team debuted, took a few seasons off during World War II, and returned in 1949. They played for four more...

In 1946, at an industry convention in California, Cincinnati restaurant owner Dave Frisch met Bob Wian who introduced him to a double-decker hamburger called the ???????????????????????????Big Boy.???????????????????????? Dave secured permission to adopt the concept but personalized the Big Boy by dressing it with a...

Two Guys from Harrison, better known as the Two Guys department store chain, was founded in New Jersey, was founded in the late 1940s, somewhat by accident. Brothers??Herbert and Sidney Hubschman, who had operated a snack bar at the headquarters of RCA, obtained several...

Dutch Pantry was a restaurant chain founded in Selinsgrove, PA in 1945. It eventually grew to over 50 locations in 12 states but by the early 1980s the chain was in decline. Most were closed by the end of that decade.

Municipal Stadium in Kansas City opened in 1923 as??Muehlebach Field. In 1937 it became??Ruppert Stadium, before changing its name again in 1943 to Blues stadium in honor of the AAA Blues that played there. However, another, better known team played there starting in 1937:...

The original Bills football team was established in 1946 as the Bisons in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). In 1947, after a name-the-team contest, the new name was selected. In 1949, the NFL absorbed several AAFC teams but, oddly, the Bills were not one...

Established in 1931, the St. Louis Gunners were an independent football team that played the final three games of the 1934 NFL season after the collapse of the Cincinnati Reds football club. They beat Pittsburgh in their first league meeting but lost to Detroit...

If you grew up in the Cleveland area, you remember Lockie-Lee Dairy. Founded in 1946 it was an integral part of school & family life for generations.

The All-America Football Conference, or AAFC, was founded in 1945 by Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward in 1944 to challenge the established National Football League. Ward's new circuit debuted in 1946 with eight teams and played for three seasons before the NFL absorbed...

The Hula Hut was a tiki bar in San Diego located in the old Gates Hotel. It opened in 1946 and closed in 1965. Frequented by military personal and aircraft workers from nearby factories, the club was raided for illegal gambling in 1947. Today...

The original Los Angeles Blades played in the Western Hockey League (WHL), a minor league circuit based on the West Coast,?? from 1961 to 1967. The team began as the Victoria (B.C.) Cougars in 1949. They were sold and moved to Los Angeles in...

Before the Cincinnati??Swords,??Stingers, Cyclones, and??Mighty Ducks, Cincinnati had the Mohawks. They were a member of the American Hockey League (AHL) from 1949 to 1952, before moving to the International Hockey League (IHL), where they won 5 straight championships. Their home ice was the??Cincinnati Gardens.

The Indianapolis Capitals played in the American Hockey League from 1939 to 1952. They won the league championship, the Calder Cup, in 1942 and 1950.

Honest Ed's was a landmark discount store in Toronto that was named for its proprietor, Ed Mirvish. The store opened in 1948 and continued to operate until it permanently closed on December 31, 2016. OS16097

The Big Six Conference membership grew with the addition of Colorado on December 1, 1947 and making the conference's unofficial name the Big Seven Conference. This conference name lasted from 1948 to 1957. OS15776

Pro football in Miami dates back to 1946 and the Miami Seahawks who were charter members of the All-America Football Conference. They only lasted one season. Miami's then small population, combined with underfunded ownership doomed the team's stay in South Florida. In 1947 they moved...

On January 10, 1947, the first commercial flight landed at what was then called the Greater Cincinnati Airport in the Boone County, Kentucky hamlet of Hebron. Officials in Cincinnati saw this as a temporary situation and continued their ultimately unsuccessful efforts to bring the...

The original Bills football team was established in 1946 in Buffalo as the Bisons in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). In 1947, after a name-the-team contest, the new name was selected. In 1949, the NFL absorbed several AAFC teams but, oddly, the Bills were...

Steve Crane was an actor turned restaurateur. After opening the highly successful Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills in the late 1940s, he started the Kon Tiki chain in 1958. Most of these were located inside Sheraton hotels.

The phrase "Best Location in the Nation," seems to have been coined in the 1940s. Still very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, it comes from the fact that Cleveland is 600 miles from 60% of the U.S. (and a good chunk of Canada).

The Boston Yanks were established in1944 and brought pro football back to the city for the first time since the city's previous team left for Washington, D.C. in 1937. In 1945, the team temporarily merged with the Brooklyn Tigers (formerly the Dayton Triangles) for...

Seven years after the departure of the city's team for Washington, Boston got a new pro football team in 1944. For four years the Yanks called the city home and formed quite a rivalry with Philadelphia.

The??Sabios de Vargas??baseball club became a founding member of the??Venezuelan Professional Baseball League??in its inaugural season of??1946. The team represented the city of??La Guaira, Vargas??and played its home games at the now-extinct Estadio Cerveza Caracas. *Design is officially licensed from the Negro Leagues Baseball...

Forest City Beer and Ale brewed beers at their plant on the corner of Union Avenue and E. 69th Street from 1904 until 1948. The brewery was known for producing??a whole slew of pre and post prohibition brews including Select Pilsner Beer, Waldorf, and...