1954 Demolition of the Robert E. Lee Hotel

[Sportster]

True!
I do some comparitive analysis on the hand painted cards, vs. the RPPC's (Real Photo Post Card) image. You can, at least w/ Elite, Southwest News and Hall Bros, tell that their image or rendering came from an RPPC taken by whoever was taking postcard photographs on any given day. One of the most prolific RPPC publishers was William H. "Dad" Martin of Ottawa, KS. Martin was considered the father of the exaggeration postcards with 20 ft ears of corn and giant turnips and onions dwarfing the humans in the same shot. Martin also owned North American Postcard Company of Kansas City, one of the more prolific RPPC producers in the region.

Damn! Where'd that skreed come from!?
Sorry.
You're both right on - card publisher took many liberties with images, putting buildings where there were none, moving structures, erasing structures. Gotta go to the RPPC to get the true image.

Sportster
...will now do second fact check on second book copy! 

[zlohban]

http://kchistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.p ... X=1&REC=14

This photo shows the alley between the Robert E. Lee and the Convention Hall.

[mlind]

Photographs are more accurate.

Thanks to Photoshop, future historians won't be able to say that. 

[LenexatoKCMO]

Thanks to Photoshop, future historians won't be able to say that. 

Nothing has really changed - there is hardly a single re-touching or composting function in Photoshop that doesn't owe its origin to a wet darkroom technique from the "good ol days".  Ansel Adams was one of the most heavy handed photo re-touchers around - any historian thinking that dramatic yosemite sky is just the factual scene Ansel saw through the lens way back in the day would be operating under the same illusions as someone falling for a digitally "enhanced" photo today.