Just east of New Orleans is the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Like yesterday’s booklet about New Orleans, this is from the collection of Illinois Central staff artist Charles Medin. However, none of the artwork in the booklet is by him.
Click image to download a 9.9-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet. Click here to download a 3.0-MB PDF of the full cover of the booklet.
In addition to the full-color cover, the interior has four spreads of drawings in black and white with a red tint. Two of the drawings are signed “Proehl” with a tiny logo that looks a little like a P and a Y joined together. Proehl would be Paul Proehl (1887-1965), a staff artist for Palenski-Young, a Chicago firm that specialized in advertising art.
The cover isn’t signed Proehl, but it does have the P-Y logo above the letters “CHI,” which undoubtedly refers to Chicago. Just to confirm, a map on the page facing the inside back cover says, “Art Work by Palenski-Young, Inc., Chicago.”
Despite the lack of a signature, I’m pretty sure the cover art was also by Proehl, who was known for seascapes as well as color posters of the Gulf Coast for Illinois Central. Proehl also did posters and other art for Chicago & North Western and Burlington. As previously noted here, Proehl originally studied architecture but ended up an artist and was made a partner in Palenske-Young in 1924.
The Palenske in Palenske-Young was Reinhold Heinrich Palenski (1884-1953), who was born in Chicago, studied at the Art Institute, and did enough paintings of the Rocky Mountains that he was one of the founders of the Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies. Unfortunately, no one seems to remember who the Young of Palenske-Young was as there were several Chicago artists named Young at the time and one were known to be particularly associated with Palenske.
The art work in Proehl’s spreads in the booklet send a clear message that the Gulf Coast was a place where the very well to do could golf, dance, fish, and play other calm sports in peace and luxury. The rest of the booklet is filled with photos showing various fancy hotels and golf courses.
The map facing the inside back cover is dated September 14, 1926. While that is not firm proof of the date of the booklet, page 19 says that one particular hotel “is expected will be opened January 1, 1927.” So I am dating the booklet to 1926.
Click image to download a 330-KB PDF of this insert.
The booklet was accompanied by this insert listing more than 40 hotels, ranging from 8 to 400 rooms, in 10 cities on the Gulf Coast. The list includes number of rooms, rates, and whether those rates were on the European (room only) or American (meals included) plans.