Mystery Monday (10/17)

Posted on 10/17/2011 by Lance Roper in Mystery Monday

Welcome to this week’s Mystery Monday Contest! This photo will be challenging, but not as challenging as last week’s. The big sign on the building in this photo should give you enough clues to get started!

After reading our guidelines below, leave your observations as to what this photo could be and where it might fall on the map. The more descriptions and observations, the better!

Here are the guidelines:

  • If you can correctly identify the photo with a link to Google Maps showing where it is, or should be*, you win! Leave a comment here on the blog or on our Facebook Page.
  • Whoever identifies the photograph and posts a link to its correct location first wins!
  • This week’s winner will receive a $50 coupon for any framed print, or simple bragging rights! Whichever you prefer!

If you know of anyone else who would enjoy this blog (or perhaps someone who would be a great competitor,) please send them here!

Let the games begin!

Visitor Comments

I've not had any luck googling "Wheelers". Lots of links to places selling four-wheelers, etc; but nothing pertinent to this photo so far. It looks like the dark sign under the Wheelers sign by the road says (redundantly) "Welcome to Wheelers" or perhaps "Welcome to [name of town]". I'm not good at judging model years for pickups; but the El Camino with a topper looks to me like the late 60s or early 70s models. This location has the feel of Midwest or Plains (but after last week, don't trust me).

There were several Wheelers Farm Supply stores accross central Nebraska with in 40 or so miles of the Platte River, Mostly to the north. I believe they were sold off sometime in the 90's and either became Country Generals which were later Dollar Generals or Orscheln's. I would say this photo is 1975 or sooner and is in cattle and corn country with all of the cattle shutes and the gravity box wagons which just started becoming popular around that time. Also at the very top of the picture is a combined corn field. Can not tell what the business is just to the north of the farm store. Question is does Vintage Aerial have any pictures from Nebraska? The home page map only shows very eastern Nebraska as having pictures/

Tony and Wil, great observations! I'll tell you, Nebraska is not the state, but it's close!

I have found Wheelers Farm Supply mentioned in this obituary (of the founder): http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thei...

The chain of stores originated in Grand Island, NE; it "became one of the largest farm store chains and was sold in 1975 to the Peavey (ConAgra) Co." Thus, this photo is probably 1975 or earlier (assuming Peavey changed the name of the stores). I have not yet found information about the extent of this chain of stores.

Thanks to Lance, I could quit skimming through the Nebraska film rolls and move to adjacent states. Thanks to that obituary, I decided to focus on rolls from 1977 or earlier.

This photo was taken in 1976. The buildings in the upper left of the photo are hangars for small (e.g. Cessna) airplanes, and you can just make out a runway along the top of the photo. The next photo on the roll (http://vintageaerial.com/photos/kansa...) is of that airport.

This location on Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&amp...

That airport is the Amelia Earhart Memorial Airport (http://www.cityofatchison.com/departm... Amelia Earhart was a native of Atchison, KS.

I've not yet figured out what the name of this business is now. There are several grain hauling trucks and trailers in the lot, but mostly numerous cooling units (possibly for grain elevators?).

Sorry, I keep forgetting to not put a link in parentheses. The link for the airport is: http://www.cityofatchison.com/departm...

Good work Tony! It never takes many hints before you find the photo! And kudos to Wil's observations! He was only 1 year off.

I couldn't have done it without Wil's knowledge of the Wheelers Farm Supply chain; and Lance's hint last week about how to see all the rolls available for a given county.

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.