The Fifties

Ames Department Stores Inc. was a chain of discount stores??founded in 1958??in Rocky Hill, Connecticut and at its peak operated 700 stores in 20 states. Despite some success in its later years, Ames was plagued by debt and a slow decline in sales and...

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...

The Islands was a Polynesian bar and restaurant in Phoenix that operated from 1958 through the '70s.??

Laika was the first living creature to orbit the Earth. A stray dog from the streets of Moscow, she made her historic flight on November 3, 1957 aboard Sputnik 2. Unfortunately she did not survive the mission. In 2008, a monument was erected to...

Established in the 1950's, Tic Tock eventually had four locations in the San Francisco area.

Pizza Haven was founded in Seattle in 1958. It??was one of the first pizza places to make deliveries. Restaurant employees used radio phones to relay orders to roving drivers who carried stacks of pizzas in a warming oven in the back of their vehicles....

The Elite Giants were a Negro league baseball team that played from 1920 to 1950, both independently and as part of several different leagues. The team called several cities home over the years, including Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, and Washington. The played in Nashville from...

Kenny King's was a sit-down, fast-casual family restaurant chain that operated in Northeast Ohio from the 1950s until the mid 1990s. It was best known as a franchisee of Kentucky Fried Chicken as well as for offering its own Big King steakburger.

These flame resistant masks were a staple for every kid's Halloween costume from the 1950's through the 1980's. Did you have one?

Located four miles south of Myrtle Beach on Old Highway 17. Magic Harbor was established in the early 1954 as a Pirate Land. In the 1960s it was re-themed as a Wild West amusement park. It was later bought by the company that owned...

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.

Before Spot, there was Fresh Freddie who first introduced kids to 7-Up back in the 1950's.

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.

Since 1957, Dairy Belle has been serving up shakes and fries to folks of the Bay Area. OS16523

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

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 Portsmouth Spartans were established in 1928 and played in Southern Ohio for six seasons. IN 1934 they were purchased for $8,000 by a Detroit radio executive who moved the team to Michigan. They were renamed the Lions and became one of the most successful...

The Memphis Red Sox were established in 1920 and played in several Negro leagues including,??Negro Southern League??(1921???1924, 1926, and again 1931-1936),??Negro National League (I)??(1924???1925, 1927-1930), and the Negro American League??(1937???1959). Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, William "Willie" Henderson Foster, Daniel Robert Bankhead, Jehosie "Jay" Heard, Marshall...

Higbee's was a department store founded in 1860 in Cleveland. It almost went out of business during the Great Depression, but reorganized and became quite successful after World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, suburban were locations were added at the new shopping...

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.

Holiday Hill amusement park opened in 1955 on Lambert Road, just east of St. Louis Lambert International Airport. It featured a roller coaster, kiddie land, miniature golf course, swimming pool, and arcade. Increased competition, limited space, and other, unforeseen, circumstances, led to the park's...

Officially known as the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel, The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel opened in 1950 and connects Red Hook in Brooklyn with Battery Park City in Manhattan.

It's considered the greatest bad movie of all time. Written and directed by the infamous Ed Wood in 1959, Plan 9 from Outer Space??focuses on an attempt by extraterrestrials to stop mankind from making a doomsday weapon capable of destroying the entire universe.

Vampira was a horror movie host in the 1950s in Los Angeles. Played by actress Maila Nurmi, Vampira appeared on KABC from April 1954 to April 1955. She later appeared in the infamous Ed Wood sci-fi/horror film??Plan 9 From Outer Space.??

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...

The Skipper Ryle Show was a TV program in Cincinnati on WKRC-TV. Glenn Ryle hosted this show from 1955 to 1972.

Blue Skies Roller Rink was a popular teen hangout in the 1950's in North Jefferson, Missouri.

The Dallas Texans played in the Arena Football League from 1990 to 1993. After failing to meet league financial obligations, they folded. Indoor football returned to the area in 2002 in the form of the Desperados, who played until 2008. The Dallas Texans was...

Fay's Drug was a chain of drug stores that was founded in 1958 in Fairmount, New York.  OS15872

The Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena opened on July 4, 1959 and sat next to the Coliseum. The first event was held four days later, a boxing match between??Jos?? Becerra??and??Alphonse Halimi. During its 57 year history it hosted not only boxing matches and concerts...