Pinstripes & Parchment

Antique & Vintage Postcards

← Browse Collection
Postcard Face on Barroom Floor Teller House Central City Colorado Chrome
FrontBack
Chrome · 1955

Postcard Face on Barroom Floor Teller House Central City Colorado Chrome

Central City, Colorado, USA1955ChromeGood

A face stares up from polished hardwood planks — haunting, half-submerged in the grain of the floor itself — while a child's doll dangles its legs from above and a pair of iconic red loafers stand guard nearby. This is the legendary Face on the Barroom Floor of Teller House in Central City, Colorado, painted in 1936 by Herndon Davis, a Denver artist who reportedly paid his bar tab with the image. The woman depicted is believed to be his wife Edna. Photographed in close, lurid color that amplifies the surreal quality of the mural, this mid-century chrome-era souvenir captures one of the American West's most beloved folkloric mysteries. Teller House itself, built in 1872, served as the social and business epicenter of Colorado's first great mining boom, hosting President Ulysses S. Grant among other luminaries. The card was published by S. S. Newbury of Central City and printed in Milwaukee by W. A. Krueger Co. in their "Micro Color" process — a high-fidelity chrome reproduction technique prized by collectors for its rich tonal depth.

$10.95
Good
Buy on eBay
PC-04601 · S. S. Newbury, Central City, Colorado
← Browse Full Collection