Early Americana

The Atlanta Crackers were a minor league baseball team that played in Georgia's capital from 1901 until the arrival of the Braves from Milwaukee in 1965. Their home for most of that time was Ponce de Leon Park. They played their final season in...

Opened in 1912 as Navin Field, Briggs Stadium was the home of the Detroit Tigers. In 1938, it was renamed Briggs Stadium, a name it kept until 1961 when it became Tiger Stadium.

Geauga Lake is a former theme park in Aurora, Ohio that was established in 1887 in what had been a local recreation area adjacent to the lake of the same name. The first amusement ride was added in 1889, and the park's first roller...

Musicland was founded in Minneapolis in 1955.?? In 1964, it merged with music distributor JL Marsh followed by merger in 1968 with record label and distributor Pickwick International. In 1977, American Can Company bought Pickwick and a year later, famed New York record store...

Cleveland Stadium, also known as Municipal Stadium or Lakefront Stadium, was the primary home of their big league baseball team from 1932 to 1993 and their football team from 1946 to 1996. It was also home to the Cleveland Stokers soccer team, as well as...

In the 1920s, baseball was starting to become popular in Japan. To take advantage of this new-found interest, several Negro league and barnstorming teams toured the country playing exhibition games to huge crowds. One such team was the Philadelphia Royal Giants, which was actually...

Harmony House was founded in 1947 in Hazel Park, a suburb of Detroit, by Carl Thom. At its peak, it had 38 stores in Metro Detroit. The bursting of the CD sales bubble of the late '90s and the rise of digital music spelled...

The Hollywood Stars were a Pacific Coast League baseball team based in Southern California. The first iteration played in L.A. from 1926 to 1935 before moving to San Diego. The second Stars team played from 1938 to 1957 and the arrival of big league...

The St. Louis Hawks began as the Buffalo Bisons in the National Basketball League (NBL) in 1946. After just one month in Western New York, the team moved to Moline, IL and became the Tri-City Blackhawks. The team became part of the National Basketball...

The Homestead Grays were one of the longest-running Negro league baseball teams in history, playing from 1900 to 1950.??They were Negro Leagues Champions in 1943, 1944, and 1948. *Design is officially licensed from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

In 1920, while working for the NECCO candy company, Howard B. Stark invented a caramel and vanilla-swirled nougat filling he named Snirkle. In 1939, he founded the Howard B. Stark Company in Milwaukee and began making Snirkles Caramel Bars which became a regional hit....

Los??Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo??was a??Dominican??dream team??formed in 1937 under the direction of then-dictator??Rafael Trujillo.??The team was essentially a merger of??Tigres del Licey??and??Leones del Escogido.??The team represented??Santo Domingo??in the championship series that lasted from March 28 to July 11 of that year, resulting in the...

Burger Chef was a fast-food hamburger chain that started in Indianapolis in 1958. At its peak in the mid 1970s, it was second only to McDonald's in the number of nationwide locations. The chain even made inroads into Canada. In 1982, the chain was...

Hockey Night in Canada traces its roots back to 1931 and Saturday night radio broadcasts of NHL hockey. It came to television in 1952. It is one of the most iconic sports television sports events in the world, pre-dating Monday Night Football in the...

Sportsman's Park was the name of several separate ball parks in St. Louis. All but one stood at Dodier Street and Grand Blvd. The final version of the park was home to both the city's NL and AL baseball clubs. The AL team left...

The Homestead Grays were one of the longest-running Negro league baseball teams in history, playing from 1900 to 1950. Formed in Homestead, a suburb of Pittsburgh, the team grew represent the entire area, eventually sharing Forbes Field with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The team also...

Cheer up with glass of a dark, drinkable cream brew and??Louisville classic, Oertels Beer.

National Record Mart, or NRM for short, started in 1937 in downtown Pittsburgh as Jitterbug Records. In the 1940s, it changed its name and began to grow, eventually opening 130 stores in 30 states, including every mall and shopping center in Pittsburgh.

The Enchanted Forest in Ellicott City opened on August 15, 1955, just one month after Walt Disney opened his theme park in Anaheim, California. The park closed in 1995 with many of its rides and other elements being moved to a nearby farm for...

Formerly the Denver Bears, this Pacific Coast League team, founded in 1955, was renamed the Zephyrs in 1984. The club moved to New Orleans when the Colorado Rockies began play in Major League Baseball in 1993.

The Cincinnati Tigers were a Negro baseball team founded in 1934. They played as an independent team for three years before joining the Negro American League in 1937. They played in that circuit for only one season before disbanding. The team used uniforms donated...

Opened in 1910 to replace South Side Park, Comiskey Park was the home of the Chicago White Sox for 80 years and was also the home field of the Chicago American Giants of the Negro American League from 1941 t 1952. It was also...

Forest City Auto Parts was founded in 1927 and grew to over 50 locations throughout the Midwest. In 2001, it filed for bankruptcy protection, shuttered its remaining stores.

"The World's Most Famous Clown," as he is sometimes called, got his start in 1946. He made is TV debut in 1949, just as that medium was getting started. He??was the creation of created by??Alan W. Livingston??and first played by??Pinto Colvig. He was played...

County Stadium was originally developed to replace aging Borchert field which dated to 1888. At the time ground was broken, the city was home to a AA team but hoped to attract a big league club. Indeed, the minor league team would never play...

Canada's Sam the Record Man, not to be confused with U.S.-bases Sam Goody, was founded in 1937 by Sam Sniderman. Originally it was the phonograph records department of his parents store on Yonge St. in Toronto. It grew to become the country's largest music...

The San Francisco Seals baseball team played in the AAA Pacific Coast League from 1902 until 1957. The arrival f the Major League Baseball New York Giants in 1958 saw the Seals shifted to Phoenix. There they became the farm team of the now...

The Seattle Rainiers began in 1903 as the Seattle Indians. In 1938, beer magnate Emil Sick bought the team and renamed it after his Rainier brewery. He also built the team a new home, Sick's Stadium. In 1965 they became a farm team of...

The Providence Reds (also known as the Rhode Island Reds) started in the Canadian-American Hockey League in 1926. They continued with that circuit when it became the American Hockey League in 1936. In 1976, the became the Rhode Island Reds, before moving to Binghamton,...

The??Philadelphia Stars??were a??Negro league baseball??team from??Philadelphia founded in as an independent team in 1933. In 1934, they joined the Negro National League, staying until that League's collapse following the 1948 season. They were affiliated with the Negro American League from 1949 to 1952. *Design...