Brownsville 1965 ~ George Lopez

Photo by George Lopez

Let's get right to it.  This is the entrance to the John B. Hunter Room at the Arnulfo Oliveira Memorial Library where Yolanda Gonzalez worked many years as their genealogist historian librarian writer etc etc and told awesome ghost stories which happened there.

It was named after John B. Hunter who ran an A/C business RGV wide. We saw a post of their building and fleet a couple of days ago.  He donated many of his books and historical resources for the archival collection in the library.

I worked there from 2K to 2006, last two years in that room but never got creeped out or anything.  I never saw any ghosts but we'll save that for later.

The photo was taken by George Lopez, a 1965 BHS graduate who created the "Brownsville1965" webpage for an upcoming high school reunion.  People sent stuff in and the page exploded with nostalgic photos and postcards of that bygone era.  I met George on a couple of occasions and it was on one of his visits that he took this photo.  His page is gone now and unfortunately so is he but he was posting vintage Brownsville before anyone did like no one's business.

The B&W card bottom left was printed by Rene Torres who I also met working in that library and continues writing histories about the Rio Grande Valley culture of the twentieth century.

I messed around a lot with Photoshop and learned what I could about Brownsville's history from there.  I decorated the entrance with 1950's Brownsville Herald full page mini-images scanned from microfilm in that library.  That microfilm was scratched and dirty and scans were blurry but I spent hours practicing how to clean them up and lots of other library stuff....

That "Tal Para Cual" poscard from a Jorge Negrete movie poster came from a friend I met there.  Rogelio Agrasanchez "owner and curator of the Agrasánchez Film Archive in Harlingen, the world’s largest private collection of its kind."  He was gathering research on he downtown theaters and by coincidence I had done much of the research already which he was able to use some of for a book he was writing.  I could go on and on but just click link below if you're interested in the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema like many of our parents were.

Agrasánchez Film Archive

Agrasánchez Collection of Mexican Cinema, 1931-2001

John Hawthorne was my boss.  We've known each other ever since.  He was the best librarian that section ever had and was a pleasure to work with.  Millie Hernandez is still there doing very well.  Those were some good times.

You're not forgotten George Lopez -- creator of "Brownsville 1965"  ~  Thanks