The Winecoff Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia
Old postcards are awesome. Not only are they fun to look at (this style of postcard with the white edging is a particular favorite of mine and apparently dates from around World War I to 1930 or so.
The other thing about older postcards that is awesome is that they show a small glimpse of some else's life a long time ago.
This postcard was sent on April 7, 1930, so 85 years ago today. The back of this postcard can be seen below. The card's printed advertisement for the hotel reads:
HOTEL WINECOFF
Absolute Fireproof. European Plan 200 Rooms Each With Individual Bath. Located Nearer Than Anything to Everything on Atlanta's Most Famous Thoroughfare
PEACHTREE STREET.
By the way, recall that the hotel is advertised as "Absolute Fireproof." I'll be getting back to that. This signed message on the card reads:
April 7/ [19]30
Arrived at Atlanta 6:00 PM. We are stopping at the hotel shown on the other side.
Your father, A. F. Linn [?]
and the card is addressed to a Frank H. Linn of 511 Park Place in Springfield, Ohio.
Literally, this postcard was a quick message to his son back home that he had arrived at his hotel in Atlanta.
With older cards, I like to do some quick internet searches out of curiosity about the sender and receiver. This can be difficult since people do move around quite a bit, but considering that the year this card was sent was 1930 and that year was a US Census year, it is a bit easier to find this out.
The sender A.F. Linn was likely Alvan F. Linn, born September 23, 1864 during the US Civil War. He was apparently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins and then an instructor of Chemistry at Wittenburg College in Springfield, Ohio.* In 1922 he was also the Registrar.** He passed away less than ten years after sending this card on May 8, 1939
It looks like the receiver, Frank H. Linn was born on or around August 31, 1897, making him about 32 when this card was sent. He sadly passed away in April of 1974 according to web-searches.
The address of the card, 511 Park Place in Springfield, Ohio appears to possibly still exist and looks as if it is owned by Wittenburg University.
The subject of the front of the card is the Hotel Winecoff in Atlanta (originally opened in 1913). It current is called The Ellis Hotel (since circa 2007) and is listed on National Register of Historic Places in the US.
Seventeen years after this postcard was sent, the Hotel Winecoff was the sight of the deadliest hotel fire in US history. On December 7, 1946, a fire in the hotel killed 119 people of the 304 hotel guests.
I purchased this vintage card from an online seller located in Ohio.
*: The Johns Hopkins University Circular, vol. VIII- No. 68, Baltimore, November 1888, page 7 [link]
**:Patterson's American Educational Directory, Vol. 19, 1922 [link]
I love all the research you did for this vintage card. It is so fascinating what you discovered. I am a lover of old postcards too, but I never thought about doing an ancestry search of the people. I think that's a brilliant idea and you have inspired me to do some research on some of my favorite postcards. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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