Saturday's postcard: Whale at Moon Valley Park in Milford, Pa.

In 2020, the idea of being swallowed alive by a whale doesn't necessarily seem like the worst possible outcome.¹ Which leads us to today's vintage postcard, Pinocchio and the Whale from Moon Valley Park in Milford, Pennsylvania. 

Let's skip past the fact that the whale looks like a goldfish on steroids and start with the information on the back of this postcard, which was mailed to an address in Brooklyn, New York, with a 3.6¢ bulk-rate postmark. The text states:

  PINOCCHIO AND THE WHALE Walk inside the Whale and relive the storybook experiences of Pinocchio. One of the most enchanting and unique exhibits in the East. MOON VALLEY PARK Story Book Land and Animal Farm Western Pioneer Town U.S. Routes 6 & 209 Milford, Pa.
There is an additional stamped bit of text that encourages folks to inquire about brochures, cottages and group rates. (See below.) 

The postcard was "Photographed & Published" by Albert W. Koster, Pocono Scenicards & Photographics, Stroudsburg, Pa. It was made by Dexter Press of West Nyack, New York.

There's not a tremendous amount of information about long-gone Moon Valley Park available online. Here are some of the puzzle pieces I put together:

-- I can't find exact dates for when the park was in operation, but the best guess appears to be the 1960s until the late 1970s or early 1980s. 

-- "Memories of Milford" is a five-minute video produced by Knowles Media and narrated by Theresa Rocco. She talks a lot about Moon Valley Park, and you can watch it on this Vimeo page. In a comment on that video, Jeremy Wolfe notes: "I worked one summer at Moon Valley Park running the pony concession. I was 14 or 15 and this was 1974 or 1975 and I lived with my grandmother for the summer. It was my first 'real' job as a youngster." Wolfe also notes that he spent almost as much time reading Tolkien books (while waiting for customers) as he did working that summer.

-- In 2014, Jessica Cohen of the Times Herald-Record provided this bit of related info: "Built in 1850, the Hiawatha stagecoach, which will be displayed at the Tri-State Historical Exhibit, was once a busy vehicle. But a few decades ago, it found itself enclosed and neglected in a barn in Moon Valley Park, a children’s fantasyland in Milford on Route 6 and 209. The park vanished, but the Hiawatha was given to the Pike County Historical Society in the 1970s, says Lori Strelecki, Columns Museum director. At the age of 6, she had walked into the mouth of a whale at Moon Valley Park, and as an adult she had an opportunity to ride in the stagecoach, as the Historical Society restored its splendor."

-- Finally, there's an extensive February 2017 post about Moon Valley on the Dingmans Ferry - Delaware Twp Historical Society Facebook page. One of the predecessors of Moon Valley, at a different site, was Rainbow Village, which featured storybook-themed colleges. The operators of Rainbow Village, the Kerns, later decided to create a pioneer-themed attraction. The Facebook post states: "Lovers of nature, the couple rescued and raised orphaned animals and thus began the addition of a petting zoo which grew to include a bobcat, lynx, raccoon, ponies and llamas. The petting zoo led to the creation of a game farm and there was no stopping there! Storybook Land was born and to the delight of adults and children alike, continued to grow with the inclusion of Mr. Kern's fairytale exhibits. The park was advertised as 'One of the most enchanting and unique exhibits in the East, where the young at heart can relive the experiences of their storybook friends.' Children could visit the old woman in the shoe, spend time with Pinocchio in the belly of a giant yellow whale or play on the (wooden) horse drawn stagecoach before hiking the path to 'Rainbow Falls.'" The Kerns sold the property to the Canouse family in the mid-1960s, and the Canouses renamed the attraction Moon Valley Park. More exotic birds, a gift shop and a snack bar were added. It didn't last forever, of course. But it had quite a heyday.

Footnote 

1. I mean, Reichstag is trending on Twitter this morning. So that can't be good, right?

Rest of the old grocery store photos

My plan to do a series on old grocery store photos kind of went by the wayside two weeks ago. Because life just keeps coming at us fast in 2020. Which is probably the nicest thing anyone has said about 2020. Many folks are much less charitable in their thoughts about what 2020 can go do with itself, and I wouldn't disagree with them, except to say that it's people who do damage, not arbitrary numbers picked to count the number of Earth's trips around the sphere of hot plasma at the center of the solar system. (Also, I'm not sure I'd place any bets on 2021 being a bed of roses.)

 Anyway, I wanted to get to the rest of those grocery store photographs, so I'm posting them all here tonight. They are all printed on paper that's about 5 inches by 7 inches. There's no photo lab stamped on the back. Given the subject matter and the fact that some of these photos are very blurry, I suspect they were taken as part of someone's photography class — an early assignment to just shoot any subject and then learn how to develop and print photographs in the darkroom.

So here are the rest of the photographs, which I think are from the 1960s. You can click on them to see larger versions.

Some of the items (or signs) we can see in the above photos include cigarettes (Camel, Salem, and one brand I can't make out), layer cake, leg of lamb, wieners, Klear floor wax, bread, rolls, coffee cakes, pies, hot cereal, canned milk, syrup, starch, bleach and Jell-O. Sharper focus by the photographer might have allowed us to identify many more. 

Does anyone know what doll the man is holding up in the first photo?

I'm also curious about the super-unfortunate Native American cartoon characters in the sixth photo. We would correctly call that racist today.

Finally, as Mr. Safety, I am intrigued by the safety poster that seems to show — correct me if I'm wrong — a two-person horse costume in which the person who is the "hind legs" is lighting a firecracker under the foot of the person who is the "front legs." This seems wrong on many levels. It's also a piece of ephemera that would be amazing to have around today.

* * * This was my first post written in the New Blogger, which I resisted switching to as long as possible. So far, I'm kind of "meh" about it, and I'm not alone in that sentiment. Seems unnecessarily less user-friendly.