Against a vivid linen-bright sky, the twelve-story red-brick Hotel De Soto anchors the corner of Locust and Eleventh in downtown St. Louis, its illuminated vertical blade sign glowing scarlet and gold, period automobiles parked nose-in along the curb below — a quintessential American city hotel scene from the late Depression era. The card promotes the hotel's Coffee Grill and Bar ("Air Conditioned") and its Schimmel-managed sister properties in Lincoln, Omaha, and Galesburg. Postmarked Saint Louis, MO, on December 1, 1938, the senders — Fred and a companion — dashed off a warm note to Mr. and Mrs. Stringer in Port Huron, Michigan: "Arrived home safely. We surely had a good time at your place. Regards to yourself and Barbey." A 1-cent green Franklin stamp completes the frank.