Whether you're "Movin' On Up" like the Jeffersons, "Movin' Out" like Billy Joel, or even "Moving Right Along" like The Muppets, any move from here to there is a pivotal moment in life.
For philluminists (serious matchbook collectors) the pivotal moment was when the match striker was moved from the front of the cover to the back. While the industries involved did so for improved safety, the necessary change became the ballywick that helps collectors date how old a matchbook is. In fact, there are collectors that only seek "front strikers" and practically disdain "back strikes" even though in some cases the matchbook has an identical design- but the slightly newer version has the backside striker.
This "announcement" design, produced by the Diamond Match Corp. highlights that moment when the striker was officially moved from the front to the back. While it's not dated, the change was mandated in 1973, thus giving collectors a median for determining the age of the matchbook.
This design is one of a series of at least four styles produced that addressed match safety - Don't smoke in bed, Keep matches from children, Keep matches and medications from children. (See blog post "Safety First", April 2015) Inside, they all have the same message balloon about safe usage- kind of like the industry saying "Hey, matches aren't dangerous unless you use them wrong!"
The KC Matchgirl has thousands of complete matchbooks, and she is merely a collector, not an arsonist.
Note: In addition to the striker location, the digits on a phone number or zip code can help determine the age of the cover, in addition to design styles.
There's a gamut of restaurants to chose from when scouting the best locations for an evening of wining and dining, but few also offer the atmosphere of mining. The matchbook pictured, for Baby Doe's Matchless Mine, actually tells no tale- until you dig a little deeper.
The top layer is the namesake for this late 20th Century restaurant chain, Elizabeth "Baby Doe" Tabor. Her rags to riches to rags story has been told in countless books, movies, and even an opera. Widowed at an early age and then abandoned by her adult daughters, she clung to the only things she had left, a tiny cabin and a closed silver mine.
Her fate as a tragic figure in American history was sealed when she was found frozen to death inside her sparse cabin in 1935. Her cabin and the adjacent Matchless Mine have been a Leadville, Colorado tourist attraction ever since, and registered as a National Historic Place.
The second layer, as we dig deeper, takes us back to 1978 when Specialty Restaurant Corp. of Anaheim, CA developed the concept for a dining establishment built to resemble a ramshackle mine. Founder David Tallichet located hillside areas in Birmingham, AL, Columbus, OH, Atlanta, GA, Dallas, TX, Denver, CO, Los Angeles, CA, and Kansas City, MO that would offer diners downtown skyline views and the very popular beer cheese soup.
A third, deeper layer, surfaces at the Kansas City location. Like the others, it was constructed of weathered wood, rusty metal, and accentuated with mining cars, a windmill, and perhaps some livestock for a true, rustic dining experience. With 10 dining rooms, a lounge, and giftshop, it was a popular dining destination after its September 1980 opening.
But just like its namesake, the restaurant Baby Doe's experienced a tragic death when diners felt the building shift in July 1985. The restaurant was quickly evacuated as gaps in the flooring grew wider. After the building was declared unstable, it was shuttered and vacant for several years, looking more and more like the abandoned mine it was built to resemble. Eventually, it was demolished after declaring the area was too unstable to repair or rebuild.
One by one, the remaining locations closed, for various reasons, and have been demolished to make way for new development. Seems nobody wants an abandoned mine these days, even with a skyline view.
NOTE: While both versions of the restaurant's matchbook have a photo of Baby Doe on the cover, the older, and more worn example (perhaps it was found in a mine) reads Baby Doe, while the version pictured at top reads Baby Doe's. Both are from the Kansas City location, which was located on W. 26th Terrace at Bi-State Drive, featuring a west side downtown view.
Everyone with toes, knows how it goes: this little piggie went to market, this little piggie stayed home, this little piggie had roast beef, this little piggie had none. And this little piggie cried, "Whee, I'm going to the Pig Stand!" (Which is a restaurant that will serve pigs- but only on a bun.)
At any rate, The Pig Stand hails as the "Originators of Drive-In Service" where customers could get "A tasty meal served at your wheel". While we're used to fast-food drive-throughs today, this was a novel concept in 1921.
The Pig Stand #1 opened in Dallas, Texas and quickly became popular enough that founding owners Jessie Kirby and Reuben Jackson opened additional locations. Customers could drive up and place their orders through uniformed carhops (male) and chose from a menu that offered chicken-fried steak sandwiches, onion rings, milkshakes, and extra thick slices of bread they dubbed "Texas Toast". The trademarked "pig sandwich" was Tennessee-style BBQ pork on a bun. Pig-shaped neon signs reading "pig sandwich" dotted cities and states after the owners started selling franchises in 1925.
But like any popular business, other sandwich shops tried to hog in with their own version of The Pig Stand, with similar names and menus. That's why the simple name "pig sandwich" was trademarked. To stay ahead of their imitators, they hired an architect to design a unique building that featured a red-tiled pagoda-styled roof for all their newly-constructed Pig Stands, and even demolished their earlier stands so all their restaurants would look the same and be easily recognized by customers.
Over the years, the menu changed and expanded- the only thing that didn't change was the 'pig sandwich". By 1959, the chain had scaled back their franchising and only operated in the Texas area (Dallas, Houston, Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Beaumont) and the founding families sold out to a new owner. The pagoda buildings were phased out for more modern "coffee shop" restaurants.
Under a bankruptcy filing in 2006, all the Pig Stands were forced to close. But luckily, the tale does not end there- a long-time employee (since 1967) was able to purchase and re-open Pig Stand #29 in San Antonio. The menu still offers the "pig sandwich", which once cost 15 cents, for $6.99. Yes, times have changed but at least the sole-surviving Pig Stand still stands.
Note: Mary Ann's Pig Stand (Pig Stand #29) is located at 1509 Broadway, San Antonio, TX. This matchbook dates to the early 1960's.
