Early Americana

Royal Castle Hamburgers??was founded in 1938 by William Singer in Miami. The chain grew to over 175 locations in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, and Michigan.??

The Hawaiian Cottage was a popular tiki bar and restaurant located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It opened in 1938 and welcomed visitors from all over the Northeast until a fire destroyed the building in 1978.

The Chicago Shamrocks??played in the American Hockey League from 1930 to 1932. The team was dissolved when owner James Norris bought the NHL Detroit Falcons out of bankruptcy and renamed them the Red Wings.

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...

Billed as "delightfully different," the Zombie Hut opened in Sacramento in 1945. Though it changed hands a few times, it remained open until 1990. The restaurant's former location is now the site of a strip mall.

Sivils Drive-In opened in Houston in 1938. After an article in?????Life?????magazine, a Dallas location was opened in 1940. A Birmingham location was later added to the chain.

Red Lion Sparkling Ale was a popular brew produced by the??Burger Brewing Company??in Cincinnati from the 1940s until the early 1970s.

Boston's third pro football team, after the Braves/Redskins (1933-1936) and Yanks (1944-1948), were founded in 1959 as charter members of the new AFL. In 1970, the team changed it's geographical name to Bay State, before switching to New England a few months later, the...

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...

The Blues were Kansas City's AAA minor league baseball team from 1902 to 1954. They played in the American Association and were charter members of that circuit. In 1954, when the A's moved to town from Philadelphia, the Blues moved to Denver and became...

The Indianapolis Olympians were formed in 1949, the same year the combined Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League became the National Basketball Association or NBA. They folded in 1953. Pro basketball would not return to the city until 1967 when the...

The Toledo Mercurys played in the International Hockey League (IHL) from 1947 until 1962. It was the league's first franchise outside of the Detroit Metro area. The team won the league championship, the Turner Cup, in its first season. They won again in 1951...

Edgewater Park was a 20-acre amusement park at Grand River and Seven Mile Rd on Detroit's West Side that opened in 1927. For over 50 years its visitors enjoyed such attractions as the Wild Beast roller coaster, the 110-foot Ferris wheel, the Hall of...

The Chicago Bulls played in what is now referred to as the first American Football??League in 1926. They, and the league, lasted only one season despite football legend Red Grange being a partial owner of the Bulls as well as the league's New York...

Taking to the airwaves on 1380 AM in 1925, KFVE became KWK in 1927. From 1978 to 1984 it broadcast a rock & roll format with the slogan "the rockin' best." In 1979 it started simulcasting on 106.5 FM.

The Marcos were a Negro league baseball team from Dayton that played mostly as an independent team from around 1910 until the start of World War II. In 1920 and 1926 they played in the Negro National League. *Design is officially licensed from the...

KXOK St. Louis went on the air on September 19, 1938 at 1250 on the AM dial. It moved to 630 two years later. One of the members of the air staff was Paul Aurandt, who would later become newscaster Paul Harvey. In its...

Bush Stadium, not to be confused with the similarly named ball park in St. Louis (with a slightly different spelling), was located in Indianapolis in the city's Riverside neighborhood. Built in 1931, it was the home of the baseball Indians (AAA), as well as...

"All roads lead to the Dog House," the slogan went for Bob Murray's Dog House Restaurant. Located at the corner of 7th and Bell, it opened in the 1930s. It served its last meal in 1994.

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...

The St. Louis Bombers were charter members of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1946. In 1949 they joined the National Basketball Association when the BAA merged with the National Basketball League. The Bombers left the new league after one season.

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.??

Big Town Mall opened in 1959 in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite and was the first enclosed shopping center in the Southwest. The center's exterior was featured in the 1985 film??True Stories by Talking Heads member David Byrne. The mall closed in 2001 and...

Druther's Restaurant was a fast food chain in Louisville that began as Burger Queen??in 1963, with its roots going back to 1956 in Winter Haven, FL. The name change came in 1981 to better reflect the restaurant's offerings which came to include chicken and...

Sandy's was a hamburger chain founded in Peoria, Illinois in 1956 by four businessmen who originally planned to open a McDonald's franchise. After a disagreement with McDonald's head Ray Kroc, the four men struck out on their own, naming their burger joint Sandy's. The...

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) and played12 seasons starting in 1943 and ending in 1954. The Grand Rapids Chicks played from 1945 until the league folded, winning titles in 1947 and 1953. The AAAGPBL was founded by MLB executives Phillip Wigley, Branch...

Memorial Stadium in Baltimore was an iconic sports venue that hosted a number of baseball, soccer, and football teams, and held many great memories for the town's sports fans. It's most notable tenants were the original Baltimore Colts football team and the one that...

Dow Breweries was a brewery based in the province of Quebec, Canada and was founded by William Dow. The Dow Brewery eventually came under the control of National Breweries of Quebec in the 1920s, which itself was bought out in 1952 by Canadian Breweries. After...

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.