One of my recent acquisitions was this ephemera from the first Freedom Festival in 1959.
A thank you letter, and a ticket to the Consular Ball were included.
Both mayors were the honorary chairs of the event.
The backside of the letter has quite the list of the member of the advisory board. Just look at all those manufacturing companies, many of them had plants both in Detroit and Windsor. Look closely and you’ll even find E.C. Row of the expressway fame on the board.
A ticket to the ball at the recently demolished Detroit Statler Hilton would have set you back $2.50 (about $17.00 in 2006 dollars). Dress optional. I don’t think that meant you could attend nude… 😉
Great post! Some people might not have known who E.C. Row was. It would be interesting to see how many of those companies still exist, either on their own or having been absorbed into some other company.
E.C. Row is one of the creepy old faces on the wall opposite the elevators in the Windsor Club on the 13th floor of the CIBC Building. I say creepy, because that building is haunted, or something. Along with other weird happenings, while I would do my security check on midnights, the elevator had a mind of it’s own. It had a key-card reader inside, and our security key-card got us to every floor, except 13. We had to enter 13 from the stair well, unless of course, the elevator had one of it’s episodes where it just sends to random floors no matter what button you press. One of the first times it did it, it shot me up to the top and the floor was dark. The doors opened, and I couldn’t really see anything, so I turned on my flashlight and all these old dudes were staring back at me from their picture frames. Scared the crap outta me. It was ll the former presidents. Another time I went in the way I should and looked them all over. E.C. Row was among them. I forget the other famous Windsor names, but I recognized several.