The Fifties

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.

League Park was a baseball stadium built in 1891, and rebuilt in 1910, at the corner of East 66th and Lexington in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland. Besides the Indians, it was home to the Cleveland Spiders, as well as the Negro American League...

The Buckeyes were a Negro league baseball team that played from 1942 to 1950, mostly in Cleveland with League Park as their home field. The team played its first season in Cincinnati, and one season, 1949, in Louisville, before heading back to Cleveland for...

The Cleveland Pipers were a pro basketball team founded in the early 1950s and were a company team that played in the Amateur Athletic Union before moving to the National Industrial Basketball League in 1959. In 1961, the team joined the professional American Basketball...

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...

Hippo Hamburgers opened in 1950 at the corner of Van Ness and Pacific and served a variety of gourmet hamburgers before gourmet hamburgers were a thing. Their vast collection included, the French Connection, the Stroganoff, the Welsh, the Ole, and the Nude Burger. The...

Not to be confused with comic actor with the same name, Pat McCormick was a T.V. personality in San Francisco best known for hosting the Charley and Humphrey kids show. The program started in Fresno in 1959 and moved with McCormick to?? KGO-TV in...

Organized by legendary dis jockey Alan Freed and local record store owner Leo Mintz, the Moondog Coronation Ball was a concert held at the old Cleveland Arena on March 21, 1952. It is generally considered to be the first major rock & roll concert.

Braves Field opened as the home of the city's National League team in 1915, three years after Fenway Park. Indeed, the city's American League team played select games at Braves field due to the greater seating capacity.  In 1953, the Braves moves to Milwaukee....

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...

Burger Queen was a popular fast food chain in the Louisville area. It was founded in 1963 and its mascot was Queenie Bee,??? with it's roots going back to 1956 in Winter Haven, FL.??In 1981 it became Druther's Restaurant to reflect a broader menu...

Just as every major city had at least one horror movie host, they also had a children's show host. In the 1960s, in Cleveland, it was Captain Penny, but for kids growing up in the '70s it was Barnaby portrayed by Linn Sheldon. The...

Chavez Ravine was chosen as the home of the relocated Dodgers in the late 1950s.

Duffy's Shamrock Bar was opened in the 1950s at 1645 Tremont Place and was a Denver institution into the 21st century. It later moved a block over to 1635 Court Place. Denver weekly paper Westword??wrote in 2002 that Duffy's felt "like an East Coast...

Founded in 1959, A&B Sound??was a??home electronics retailer based in Vancouver.??Its flagship store was downtown. Over the years, it??expanded to other cities in B.C. and western Canada, but the company began struggling in the early 2000s and went out of business in 2008.

Sno-White Dounts was established in 1957 by Nelson Paul, a former executive at the Donut Corporation of America, who left his corporate position and moved to Cleveland to become an entrepreneur. Sno-White grew into a chain that had over 200 locations at its peak.

The Indianapolis Clowns a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. They came to Indianapolis in 1946 after stints in Cincinnati, Miami, and as a barnstorming team. They left the Negro American League in 1954 but continued to play exhibition games into 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 sold...

Howdy says, "have good outdoor manners." He first appeared in 1959 in public service advertisements in Pennsylvania. His primary mission was to encourage folks not to litter, prevent forest fires, and otherwise treat the land well.

The Longhorn Ballroom opened in Dallas in 1950 and hosted everyone from the Sex Pistols to Merle Haggard.

The Dixie Drive-In Theatre opened in 1955 in Louisville's Shively neighborhood. Located at 4915 Dixie Hwy., it closed in 1967. The site was later a K-Mart and is currently a large grocery store.

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. In the late '70s, animated spokespersons Burger Chef and Jeff were introduced....

Headquartered in Twinsburg, Revco was founded in 1956. For two generations, it was the Cleveland area's leading drug store chain.

Little Kings??was first brewed in 1958 by Cincinnati's own Schoenling Brewing Co. It became very popular throughout the Midwest thanks to its distinctive 7-ounce green bottles and famous "king me" slogan.

In 1952, a group of Texas millionaires led by brothers Giles and Connell Miller purchased the assets, including the roster, of the New York Yanks football team, which had been sold back to the NFL at the end of the 1951 season. The Millers...

Paul Wilcox hosted??the TV show "Polka Varieties," the show aired Sundays on Cleveland's WEWS-TV (and eventually was syndicated on stations across the country) from 1956 to 1983. It??highlighted??both local and national polka acts.

The Los Angeles freeways are a landmark unto themselves in Southern California. Fabled in song, movies, TV, and late night comedy monologues, the system was first conceived just after World War II. he Master Plan of Metropolitan Los Angeles Freeways was adopted by the Regional...

Before major league baseball arrived in Milwaukee in 1953, the city hosted a team in the American Association (AA) starting in 1902.?? A minor league, the AA became an A level circuit in 1903. In 1912, it was designated AA and in 1945, it??...

The Flyers played in the American Hockey Association from 1928 to 1942 before moving to the American Hockey League where the played for the 1944-45 season and again during the 1952-53 season.

Van Leunens opened in the 1950s as China-Town. In 1973 the name was changed as its offerings had grown and diversified. The chain grew to seven locations: Amelia, Fairfield, Mason, Milford, and Monfort Heights in Ohio. There were also locations in Erlanger and Newport,...