Riding Around in Mason City, Iowa

 

It's that double-take we all do.
You are out and about  
and another vehicle drives past.
Suddenly you catch a glimpse
of something out of the ordinary.
Was that fella holding a tuba?

Or maybe it's just the odd face of a stranger
that makes you shake your head.
Was that guy for real?

Today I present some postcards
of curious automobile scenes
that people once encountered
in Mason City, Iowa.

.  

The first is a photo of a large open top bus carrying at least 16 men who sit on four bench seats. It would be a tight fit even without their musical instruments as on either side of the driver is a trombonist and a tuba player and behind them are men with a tenor horn, mellophone and a snare drum. The men are dressed in ordinary business suits and most wear bowler hats, According to the caption they are the Mason City Band in Mason City, Iowa. The photographer's name is Washburn.  

Mason City is the county seat of Cerro Gordo County in north central Iowa. In 1910 it had a population of 11,230 residents which included a young boy named Meredith Willson who became a very successful flautist, composer, conductor, music arranger, bandleader, playwright, and author. Meredith Willson is best remembered for his musical, The Music Man, which he wrote as a tribute to his home town and state. The show premiered on Broadway in 1957, and has been adapted twice for film in 1962 and 2003. Many of the characters in it were based on people Willson knew from his childhood in Mason City.

                                                                4/13/09
                                    Dear Lew:
                                                Some one is looking
                                    for a letter.  Do you suppose
                                    someone will get it to-
                                    morrow?  May I?
                                    Isn't this a bright happy
                                    Spring day!  but say I do need
                                    that letter.  Ho! Ho!  "Bet I do"
                                    Are you busy  busy busy today?
                                    Or have you got another tele? (?)
                                                                            William

                                                    This is one of
                                                    our City Bands.
                                                    Are to have
                                                    only 2 this
                                                    year as well
                                                    as a Boys Band
                                                    up the M. Y.
                                                    It truly makes
                                                    me sick  Ha! Ha!

Longtime readers may remember this band before as I featured a colorized version ten years ago in my story The Mason City Band from January 2014. 

This postcard is identical to the first but is a color halftone print that is not as clear as the photo postcard. It also has some abrasion that diminishes its quality but the 1910 postmark and message make up for that. 

The front of the bus has the marque The Overland for the Overland Automobile Company, of Terre Haute, Indiana, which began building motorcars in 1903. The company was sold in 1908 to John North Willys  who renamed it the Willys-Overland company, which became best known in World War 2 as the manufacturer of the all purpose military vehicle, the Jeep. Notice that the rear axle has a chain drive and on the front right is a brass horn not unlike a miniature tuba.

                            Dear  Son   I am at Mason
                            today it has been raining
                            for some days but it is
                            clear this morning I have
                            been trying to start
                            home for a week but have
                            not got started yet but
                            I am going to start Mon
                            shure am going back to
                            Rockwell this afternoon
                            going out Home tomorrow and
                            start home at 6 ...day Mom ur.. love

My third automobile photo has no musicians but the driver is an old geezer who would attract anyone's attention if he drove past. He is seated in a open top runabout with an American flag mounted on the front. His alarming face is actually a crude mask with whiskers so he may be  participating in a patriotic parade like for July 4th. Behind him is a loading dock and a horse-drawn wagon with the words BOTT_NG WORK painted on the side. 

I recently acquired this postcard for its uncanny resemblance to a photo of my great grandfather William Dobbin that I featured last year in Car Stories, the Rural Mail Carrier. 

Both cars are, I believe, a Maxwell Model LD. My great grandfather used it for his job as a rural mail carrier in Glenwood, Minnesota. The location of this other masked driver suggests that perhaps he used it as a delivery car, too. What amazed me when I compared the two cars is that William Dobbin's Minnesota number plate is 73733 and the other car's plate has 73750 with IA for Iowa. How cool is that? 

                            Mason City
                                Oct 5, 14.
                            Can you recognize
                            who this is   you
                            saw him before
                            Guess Who.

The seller added a note: 

                                    Hub Bottling Works
                  215  W. Fifth

The writer included "Mason City" next to the date but there is a Mason City in Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, and West Virginia as well as Iowa. But this puzzle was easy to solve using the city directories available on Ancestry.com. In the 1914 city directory for Mason City, Iowa has a listing for:

                        HUB BOTTLING WORKS (Thomas F Cain, Joseph F Cibuzar).
                                Mnfrs of Hub Brand Soda Water and Jobbers of
                                Ciders and Soda Fountain Supplies, 215 W. 5th, Tel 739.

1914 city directory for Mason City, Iowa

On my first real photo postcard of the Mason City Band the writer William mentions a boys band. This next postcard is surely the one he was referring to. It's a photo of a boys' band from the I.O.O.F. — International Order of Odd Fellows orphans home in Mason City. The initials FLT on the drumhead are the fraternal order's "Triple Links" symbol for its motto "Friendship, Love and Truth". The photographer was the same Mr. Washburn who took the photo of the Mason City band.

 I have several photos of this boys' band and I featured three in a story The Orphans Home Band of Mason City, Iowa which I wrote way back in January 2011. They were produced in around 1910 and on the back of one postcard were all the names of the boys. It was this rare annotation that inspired my first efforts at researching genealogy and musical history. As it predates my joining Sepia Saturday, very few people have read it. I've been pleased that the few comments I've received were from people who were once residents at the I.O.O.F. home when they were children. 

In February 2015 I wrote a story on a similar photo of a girls' mandolin/guitar "orchestra" at the orphanage, The Iowa I.O.O.F. Orphans Home Orchestra. That story was updated in 2018 with two more photos of the home's string ensembles. Mason City was clearly a very musical place in the 1910s so it's not surprising that the town's music traditions influenced the young Meredith Willson.  

I'll close with this clip
from Meredith Willson's 1962 film
"The Music Man" starring Robert Preston & Shirley Jones

It's the opening scene subtitled Rock Island. 
It's my favorite bit in the musical.

Want to bet that the old geezer
in the Maxwell runabout
was a member of Mason City's
Odd Fellows lodge?

I think he knew the territory, too.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where parking might be a problem this weekend.