Phil Gordon, who lives in Vancouver, Wash., dropped me an e-mail to let me know about an admirable project that he’s undertaking — he’s trying to collect and catalog all the linen postcards that were issued along Route 66.
He’s set up a Web site to list all of these postcards. He has them grouped by the eight Route 66 states, and has scanned a few of his favorites (including one of La Cita restaurant in Tucumcari, N.M., shown above).
He wrote:
I don’t think that we are there yet but I have worked with the heavy-hitting postcard collectors like Joe Sonderman, Steve Rider, and Mike Ward, and a few others to get the web site to where it is today. I’d like more input on the web site from all your readers […]
I plan to add a narrative and some history from the western portion of Route 66 that I knew as a kid, illustrated with real photo postcards in the “Coming” link on the main web page in a few weeks. […]
Mike Ward even suggested that I take on chrome postcards next. I hope he was joking. Someone did suggest that the hand-colored Albertype postcards would be doable but they are not my interest and I have none in my collection. I really like the old linen postcards.I’ll leave chromes to someone else!
He added that he hopes to add a page about Route 66 matchbook covers.
Gordon isn’t the only one organizing Route 66 postcards. Laurel Kane and Sonderman have done it for years, and there’s also the Curt Teich Postcard Archives. It’s good that someone is preserving these artifacts of the Mother Road.
Gordon also has a page about the Whiting Bros. gasoline chain, which was a common sight in the Southwest decades ago.
UPDATE 11/4/2013: Gordon has a new URL and host for his website. It now can be found here.