Historical Society Opens Colorful Picture-Perfect Postcard Exhibit

A nice crowd shuffled through the Marco Island Historical Museum (MIHM) on Thursday, October 14, to see the public opening of Picture Perfect: Marco Island in Postcards. A private showing was held the previous Tuesday for supporters of the museum.

Austin Bell, Curator of Collections, is justifiably proud of the new exhibit. He said the fact that the MIHM can put together an exhibit of 60 images shows how the museum’s collection has grown in recent years.

"It’s really, to me, kind of a testament to the growth of our collections over the past 10 years,” Bell said. "Because we’re celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the building of the museum. If we tried to put this exhibit together 10 years ago, it would have been impossible, because 90 percent of the postcards in our collection have been collected in the past seven years.”

Bell said that 10 percent of the museum’s collection of 600 postcards are on display. Select images have been enlarged for dramatic effect. Among the enlarged postcards are vintage photographs of Goodland. Bell is particularly proud of the museum’s Goodland collection.

“I really hope some folks from Goodland will come over to the museum and check it out,” Bell said, "because we have some really rare images of, probably, early 1950s Goodland, that most people haven’t seen before. And Goodland, frankly, is probably under-represented in our exhibits in our museum. So, we’re trying to be more inclusive of that community in exhibits like these. So, yeah, I hope the Goodland folks come out and see it.”

Marco Island Historical Society CEO Pat Rutledge is excited about the museum’s latest exhibit.

“It’s colorful, it’s engaging,” Rutledge said. "It’s educational. A subject like postcards - you know that’s part of American culture. The fact that over the past 10 years we’ve been able to collect enough to put on an exhibit is great. The actual postcards themselves are such a treasure. And we find them in so many places. Austin is always searching eBay. I just think it’s fun. It’s a fun exhibit.”

Amanda Townsend, museum director for Collier County Museums, was on hand for opening day. The postcard exhibit harkens back to Townsend’s college days at the University of Alabama.

“It’s actually a subject that’s near and dear to me,” Townsend said. "I wrote a master’s thesis on images of Florida in postcards. I couldn’t wait until the exhibit opened to see what images Austin chose.”

Robin Roberts and her friend Teresa Stuttle were thrilled with the exhibit. Roberts is a property owner in Goodland but lives in Sarasota. She showed up at the museum with a fistful of her own Marco area postcards. Her postcards included images ranging from the Marco Island bridge in its single-span days, to Isles of Capri, to the Rosie O’Shea - the Mississippi River Paddlewheel boat that used to traverse the Marco River on a daily basis.

“My aunt and uncle bought a place in Goodland in the late 1970s,” Roberts said. "I came down to visit them in the early 1980s. I remember there were a lot of mosquitoes. We went out fishing. I had two little toddlers with me. It was a lovely place. I remember going to the Little Bar, enjoying that. We purchased it from the estate in 2012. Our son loves it a lot. He comes down and enjoys it. He wants it to stay in the family. So, I think we’ll pass it on.”

Bell singled out Sherri Morrison for her graphic design work.

"She lives in Goodland,” Bell said. "She has a special affinity for this. She did all of the orange and blue vinyl lettering. And the panels, she did the graphic design work for that. She created these custom postcards for us. That’s completely original work by her. We have them printed out in postcard format for people to take home and mail.”

A few neat features of the exhibit are interactive, and both feature Morrison’s original postcard design. A huge screen occupies part of the back wall and affords visitors the opportunity to appear in their very own Marco Island postcard. There are also free postcards with Morrison’s design for visitors - complete with a postmark stamp to authenticate their souvenir.

A really special feature is a free goodie bag that includes a handsome booklet with reproductions of 10 of the vintage postcards from the exhibition. The postcards can be removed from the booklet and mailed. But it’s a good bet that many visitors will want to keep their booklet intact and in pristine condition to enjoy for years to come. A nice 10th Anniversary absorbent ceramic car coaster is also included in the goodie bag.

So, does the curator have a favorite postcard?

“My personal favorite is in the display case in the back on the left,” Bell said. "It’s a panoramic, folding, double postcard showing the Marco waterfront in probably about 1910. The Old Marco Inn and Collier’s store. And it’s just a really unusual format for a postcard. I’ve never seen another one like it. So that’s my favorite. That was an eBay find a couple of years ago.”

Picture Perfect: Marco Island in Postcards, runs through January 22, 2022.