Thursday 8 March 2012

Cowboys and Coca-Cola

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West Texans on their cow ponies around the soda pop stand at a polo match, Abilene, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, May 1939

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Activity around the soda pop stand at a polo match, Abilene Texas: photo by Russell Lee, May 1939

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West Texan sitting on his pony while watching polo match, Abilene, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, May 1939

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Cowboy buying Coca-Cola at polo match, Abilene, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, May 1939

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West Texans watching a polo match, Abilene, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, May 1939

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Cowboy sitting on corral fence. Roundup near Marfa, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, May 1939

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Soda fountain in Rushing's drugstore on a Saturday afternoon. San Augustine, Texas: photo by John Vachon, April 1943
Photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress
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6 comments:

  1. vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)8 March 2012 at 04:15

    Holy cow, #6 looks like it inspired some scenes from John Huston’s 1961 movie The Misfits!

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  2. TC8 March 2012 at 06:11

    Yes, everything but the girl.

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  3. Marcia8 March 2012 at 11:32

    Wonderful photos, providing many memories. The man on the white horse is wearing a Stetson much like the one my father used to wear. The last photo of the soda fountain brings back memories of my father buying me a coke at a place much like that. He had coffee, saying it actually made him feel cooler on a warm day than a coke. And, Abilene, Texas, was my home for five and a half years, a place where I was reminded of my prairie roots, the cowboys, and the brave people who settled an unsettling land. Thank you for the trip down memory lane.

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  4. Nin Andrews8 March 2012 at 18:10

    I am such a sucker for old photos, old poems, and I remember what a huge treat Coke was once . . .

    I am sure it tasted better back then. I guess everything did. Well, not quite everything.

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  5. TC9 March 2012 at 04:17

    Oh Abilene!

    Perhaps the memories evoked by such photos have if not a better at least a more bittersweet taste as we grow a little older, into a world that seems more and more every day as though it ought to be old enough to know better. But I suppose that latter bit applies to us as well (and to invoke the royal We always takes more liberties than any cowboy should be allowed).

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  6. TC9 March 2012 at 04:42

    Marcia,

    Here's Carol M. Highsmith's photo of one of the three buildings remaining at Fort Phantom Hill, Abilene.

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