Bob Boze Bell’s garage find

Bob Boze Bell, an author, artist and owner of True West magazine, wrote on his blog he recently had found some long-lost photographs from the 1950s — many of them on Route 66 — in a yellowed box in his garage.

He wrote:

Wish I would have had them when we were doing “The 66 Kid,” because these are exactly what I needed to tell the story of growing up on Route 66.

The first photo is of the Al Bell’s Flying A billboard on Hilltop on old Route 66 in Kingman, Arizona. The Flying A was a gas station owned by Bob Boze Bell’s father.

Bob Boze Bell said a gust of wind destroyed the billboard about a year after the photo was taken.

(Note: I let PhotoShop adjust the color and contrast so the faded images could be seen better.)

Next are two images of Al Bell’s Flying A station:

More from Bell:

From my grandparent’s photo album. On the back it says, “Allen’s station, Kingman, Arizona, 1958. Sign cost $150 a month in electricity to run. (200 bulbs on each side)” The ’56 Ford belonged to my father as well, although he gave it to my mother to drive to work at the Arizona Highway Department.

And here’s another image, titled “Lady in Red”:

Bell wrote:

That’s my mother, Bobbie, standing next to our 1956 Ford parked halfway in the lube-room. Check out the classic Coke machine. I was standing about where the front, right wheel is, when Cornel Wilde walked up to me, the next year, when Hollywood came to town to film “Edge of Eternity.” They used my dad’s Flying A in the movie and between one of the takes he stood next to me and said, “You’re up kind of early.” I said, “Yes.” And that was my first conversation with a movie star.

These aren’t all the photos. You can view more of them here and here.

Bell wrote his biography, “The 66 Kid,” in 2014. My review of the book is here.

(Images courtesy of Bob Boze Bell)