(05-12-2013 01:10 AM)Cletus Wrote:  

Senator John F Kennedy Campaigning on Riverside Drive at Court St looking up toward Front St, Memphis TN - Circa 1960

(04-30-2013 10:46 AM)Cletus Wrote:  
A view of the two mammoth river bridges from Memphis to the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River as seen in April 1923.
The Firsco Bridge is on the left and the Harahan on the right.
The photograph was taken from the Memphis side, looking toward Arkansas. (The Commercial Appeal files)

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(07-05-2013 10:37 PM)21-17 Best Time I Ever Ha Wrote:  

(04-30-2013 10:46 AM)Cletus Wrote:  
A view of the two mammoth river bridges from Memphis to the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River as seen in April 1923.
The Firsco Bridge is on the left and the Harahan on the right.
The photograph was taken from the Memphis side, looking toward Arkansas. (The Commercial Appeal files)

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I guess it was the Harahan my father rode a mule across when he was about 10. Said he was scared to death.

(07-05-2013 10:27 PM)21-17 Best Time I Ever Ha Wrote:  

(05-12-2013 01:10 AM)Cletus Wrote:  

Senator John F Kennedy Campaigning on Riverside Drive at Court St looking up toward Front St, Memphis TN - Circa 1960

Hutchison School was on Union Avenue where the Police Station is today. He rode down Union in a motorcade, probably after this speech, and the whole school turned out in the front yard to see him. I remember it so well. It was ironic that only about one student and one teacher admitted to being a Democrat.

(07-11-2013 03:23 PM)Cletus Wrote:  

Toddle House Restaurant, S. Highland Ave, Memphis TN - Circa 1937

The precursor to Toddle House was started in the late 1920s, by J.C. Stedman, a lumberman from Houston, Texas seeking to utilize leftover building supplies. Stedman persuaded the owners of Britling Cafeteria, a Memphis, Tennessee based restaurant that started a few years earlier, to build his restaurants. Shortly thereafter, Stedman was approached by a successful Memphis businessman named James Frederick "Fred" Smith, who was looking for a new investment since The Greyhound Corporation had bought a controlling interest in the Smith Motor Coach Company he founded 1931, and was renamed as the Dixie Greyhound Lines. (Smith was the father of Frederick Wallace Smith, who would eventually found Federal Express.)

In 1932, Smith became the president of the National Toddle House System, Inc. By the 1950s, Toddle House had more than 200 locations in almost 90 cities.

In 1962, Toddle House was purchased by Dobbs Houses, a competitor that also operated Steak 'n Egg Kitchen, and the franchise was allowed to decline. In 1980, Carson Pirie Scott borrowed $108 million to buy Dobbs Houses. In January 1988, Carson Pirie Scott sold Steak 'n Egg Kitchen and Toddle House to Diversified Hospitality Group of Milford, Connecticut. The chain has since been liquidated.
Business model overview


Each outlet was built to the same plan, and contained no tables, but merely a short counter with a row of ten stools. Payment was on the honor system: customers deposited their checks with the correct amount in a glass box by the door on the way out.

The menu featured breakfast all day. Lunch and dinner entrées included soups and salads, various sandwiches, such as toasted cheese and roast beef. The cheeseburger was billed on the menu as the "world's best hamburger." Desserts included various pies, pecan roll and black-bottom pie.
The chain's distinctive sign, consisting of "toddling" characters, was created by Balton & Sons Sign Company (now Balton Sign Company) who also did the iconic "great sign" for the Holiday Inns of America, the motel chain also based in Memphis. In house sketch artists at the time were Rowland Alexander and Gene Barber.

At its peak, there were more than 300 of the first version,[8] however, they disappeared in 1962 when they were converted to Dobbs Houses and then Steak N' Eggs. (Note that is at least one news report that puts the total over 1,000.)

Joe Rogers Sr., a regional manager of the Toddle House chain, left Toddle House to found the similar Waffle House.

During the segregation era, the company also operated a parallel chain of similar restaurants for African-Americans called "Harlem House."

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