{"id":7804,"date":"2018-12-25T16:42:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T16:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=7804"},"modified":"2018-12-25T17:27:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T17:27:40","slug":"stone-thomas-the-host-of-christmas-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/stone-thomas-the-host-of-christmas-past","title":{"rendered":"Stone & Thomas: The Host of Christmas Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Stone & Thomas sponsored Christmas Train, Parade, and Open House of 1958.<\/h1>\n
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This time of year, it is the Ghost of Christmas Past who visits Ebenezer Scrooge, accompanying him on a trip down memory lane in the Dickens classic, \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d A story we are all familiar with, the ethereal being takes the miserly businessman on a journey to earlier times, offering him glimpses of, well, Christmases past.<\/p>\n

This Christmas, we offer you glimpses of a Wheeling Christmas sixty years past, courtesy Stone & Thomas, our Host of Christmas Past. This nostalgic look back at our past comes not through a ghostly encounter, but via a recent addition to the Ohio County Public Library Archives, a scrapbook put together by Joe A. Funk. Funk was, for many years, the director of public relations and advertising for Stone & Thomas Department Store and is credited with directing the first Stone & Thomas sponsored Christmas parade in Wheeling. This particular scrapbook documents the 1958 Stone & Thomas Santa Claus Train, Christmas Parade, and Open House held Saturday, November 22, 1958.<\/p>\n

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Itinerary for the day\u2019s Christmas-themed events, November 22, 1958<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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-From the Wheeling New-Register, November 1958:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s Christmas Parade Route Is Announced by Stone & Thomas.<\/h3>\n
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The parade will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Terminal building and travel north on Market St. to Tenth St., west on Tenth St., to Main St., south on Main to Sixteenth St., and south on Market to the terminal building again.<\/p>\n

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A crowd greets Santa at the B&O Terminal building, where Mr. Claus is being presented the key to the City of Wheeling by City Manager Robert Plumer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At this time Santa Claus will be taken from his float and taken by convertible to Stone & Thomas Department Store where he will ascend his throne on the fifth floor of the building and receive children waiting to tell him their desires for this Christmas.<\/p>\n

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Santa in his convertible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Santa will arrive in the city at 2:15 p.m. on the second of two trains loaded with kids, wandering musicians and clowns.<\/p>\n

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The first train will depart at 11:30 a.m. Saturday for \u201cRendezvous X\u201d where it will pick up Mrs. Santa and the jolly old gentleman\u2019s helpers.<\/p>\n

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Mrs. Santa Claus and a helper greet children.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It will return at 12:45 p.m. reload and make a second trip to the same point and pick up Santa Claus himself.<\/p>\n

\"Santa<\/a>
Santa spreads his cheer on the B&O Train.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Upon his arrival at the Terminal building, Santa will be presented with the key to the city by City Manager Robert Plumer and then mount his float prepared by the Wheeling Junior Chamber of Commerce and the parade will begin. Riding with Santa on the float will be two youngsters, Lou Ann Hendershot, 5, of 402 Warwood Ave. and Billy Swiger, 7, of 23 Virginia St.<\/p>\n

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Santa on his float with children Billy Swiger and Lou Ann Hendershot, pictured here in front of the Pythian Building on 16th Street.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stone & Thomas officials said this morning that there would be continuous entertainment on the two trains during the trips and also a program from 11:15 a.m. until 2:15 p.m. at the terminal building.<\/p>\n

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The Blue tickets were for the first train, the red tickets for the second train.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The weatherman took a look into the future and offered a prediction of fair skies and nippy temperatures, on Saturday offering ideal conditions for the entry of the Christmas season.<\/p>\n

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Parade officials said there would be several floats in the parade, but only one would carry a Santa Claus.<\/p>\n

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We hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this glimpse into a Christmas of Wheeling\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas from Archiving Wheeling!<\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stone & Thomas sponsored Christmas Train, Parade, and Open House of 1958. This time of year, it is the Ghost of Christmas Past who visits Ebenezer Scrooge, accompanying him on a trip down memory lane in the Dickens classic,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40,6],"tags":[406,975,407,41,972,52,974,973,971,556,385],"coauthors":[310],"class_list":["post-7804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archiving-wheeling","category-contributor-ocpl","tag-bo","tag-bo-building","tag-baltimore-ohio","tag-christmas","tag-joe-funk","tag-parades","tag-railroad","tag-santa","tag-scrapbook","tag-stone-thomas","tag-trains"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/FI_STXmas-AW.jpg?fit=738%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pkc7-21S","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7804"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7850,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions\/7850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7804"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}