The Fifties

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??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...

Hills was a discount retail department store that was founded in Youngstown, Ohio in 1957. It started as full-fledged department store before moving into the discount arena some years after its founding. In the late '80s it bought a number of stores out of...

Rink's was founded in Hamilton, Ohio, between Cincinnati and Dayton, in 1951 by Hyman Ullner. It was later acquired by Gray Drug and later Cook United, owners of Uncle Bill's. The last Rink's store closed in 1987.

County Stadium??opened in 1953 and was home to two Milwaukee baseball teams. In 1973, the beer slide and chalet debuted in the stadiums outfield seating area. A character dubbed Bernie slid down the slide and into a giant beer mug after every home run...

The building that housed the Off Ramp Cafe was built in 1908 and was home to a variety of shops until the 1950s when a successive string of muisc clubs occupied the space. In 1986 it began booking alternative rock acts as the Off...

Sunset Bowl opened in 1957 in Ballard and soon became a local hotspot. Sunset It closed in 2008 and was demolished in 2010.

The Ottawa Rough Riders were established in 1876 and were one of the longest running professional sports teams in North America. They adopted the Rough Riders nickname in 1931, they were charter members of the Canadian Football League (CFL) formed in 1958. The club...

The Phoenix Giants were a AAA baseball team that played in The Pacific Coast League (PCL) in 1958 and 1959 and then from 1966 to 1997, when the National League Arizona Diamondbacks began play. They were the long-time farm team of the San Francisco...

In the early 1950s, between 20,000-60,000 people a year were becoming afflicted with polio. Jonas Salk and his team at the University of Pittsburgh developed a polio vaccine in 1952. By 1955 a campaign to vaccinate children in the U.S. was launched. ALbert Sabin...

Inspired by a drawing of King Arthur's court eating pizza, Round Table Pizza was a restaurant founded in 1959. It went out of business in 2011 but in 2019, was reborn as Royalty Pizza.

GrandPa Pidgeon's, also known as simply GrandPa's, was founded in 1954 by Tom and Mildred Pidgeon.??Over the next decade, several more GrandPa Pidgeon's stores opened in the St. Louis metropolitan area. At its peak in the early 1990s, the chain had a total of...

The New York Cubans were a Negro league baseball team based in Paterson, NJ that played from 1931 to 1950. The team was unique in that it occasionally had Hispanic players, who were also restricted from Major League Baseball, on it roster. In 1947,...

Chippewa Lake Park was an amusement park in Medina County near the junction of US 224 and I-71. Named for the lake by which it was built, the park was open from 1875 to 1978. Many of the old rides still sit abandoned at...

In 1995, Cleveland made it to the postseason for the first time since 1954. Though it didn't end well, it was an exciting season overall, and the players on that team endeared themselves to the city forever.

The first three pro football teams to call Dallas home played in the Cotton Bowl, starting with the 1952 Dallas Texans. The city's surviving gridiron squad, the Cowboys, moved into Texas Stadium in 1971. The facility's most unique feature is the hole in the...

Captain Penny entertained children weekdays at noon on Channel 5 in Cleveland from 1955 to 1971, showing cartoons and talking to the occasional in-studio guest. Around the holidays, Mr. Jingeling would stop by frequently. Captain Penny was portrayed by Ron Penfound who originally had...

Before the NHL's Islanders called the area home, the Island had this Eastern Hockey League (EHL) team to cheer for. The Ducks played from 1959 until 1973 (a year after the arrival of the Islanders), when the EHL folded. Their home ice was at...

Camelot was a chain of mall-based record stores founded in 1956 in Massillon, Ohio. At its peak, it operated over 450 stores in 37 states. In 1998 it was acquired by rival Trans World operators of Record Town among other chains. Most surviving locations...

Federal Records was founded in 1950 as a subsidiary of??King Records. It was home to, among others, the Dominoes and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. The most famous act on its roster, though, was the "Godfather of Soul" himself, James Brown.

Dick the Bruiser was a legendary professional wrestler from Indiana. He was born William Fritz Afflis in Delphi, Indiana and grew up in Lafayette. Before becoming a wrestler in 1955, he was lineman for the Green Bay Packers for 4 seasons beginning in 1951.

Founded in Lexington in 1957, Jerry's Restaurant offered fast-casual dining and through the '70s grew to have locations throughout the Midwest and South.

Pup 'n' Taco was a popular fast food chain in Los Angeles. It served featured hot dogs (thus the "pup" tacos, tostadas, pastrami sandwiches, burgers, and fries. Russell Wendell started in the restaurant business in 1956 with Big Donut. He introduced Pup 'n' Taco in 1965. In 1984, most of...

The Chicago Stags were charter members of the Basketball Association of America, forerunner of the NBA, which was founded on June 6, 1946. They played in the BAA Championship in 1947 but folded before the start of the 1950 season.

The Atlanta Black Crackers, originally called the Atlanta Cubs, were a Negro League baseball team that played from 1919 to 1952. They played as both an independent club as well as in various Negro leagues throughout their history. *Design is officially licensed from the...

The Columbus Red Birds began play in 1902 as the Senators in the AA American Association. In 1931, the team was purchased by, and became a farm team of, the St. Louis Cardinals, changing their nickname to Red Birds. In 1946, the Red Birds...

The Whistl'n Pig opened in 1947 at??818 S.W. Broadway in Portland. In 1954, it became Bruer's Coffee Shop.??Whistl'n Pig moved to 8640 S.W. Canyon Rd. and became the Whistl'n Pig Bar-B-Q Restaurant.

The Havana Sugar Kings were a AAA minor league baseball team based in Cuba's capital from 1946 to 1960. They were members of the International League and their parent club was Cincinnati. Their home field was??El Gran Estadio del Cerro??(also known as Gran Stadium) in Havana....

The Ottawa Rough Riders were established in 1876 and were one of the longest running professional sports teams in North America. They adopted the Rough Riders nickname in 1931, they were charter members of the Canadian Football League (CFL) formed in 1958. The club...

Mother Goose Land was a theme park in Canton, Ohio that opened in 1954. It featured attractions based on storybook characters such as??characters as Humpty Dumpty and the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe. In the 1980s, the park fell into disrepair and...