A Look At the Nevada, MO Phone Book "Classifieds" (1957)

As we said last time, we call them the Yellow Pages today...and, actually, they did back then, too.  The cover of this phone book calls them that, but the actual section is called the "Classifieds," and printed on regular, non-yellow paper.  Who knows why? Here are some interesting and strange ads that can be found there...

If you need an ambulance, any time, just call the local...funeral home.  As creepy as this is, it can't be far from the norm in 1957.  There were a few other funeral homes in the same section, and they all offered ambulances.  Also, including the guy's photo would help me to make my decision...to walk to the hospital.  All that's missing from this ad is the slogan:  "SHORTEN your stay with Shorten Funeral Home Ambulance Service."

It's interesting to think about how cars have changed.  It strikes me that this radiator design was already antiquated when they made their ad, probably purposefully.

This isn't meant to be snide, but you know you are in a rural area when there is a Yellow Pages category for "Baby Chicks."  It's just a fact.

Not only does the CHICKEN INN have steaks, but also a rather politically insensitive cartoon right in the middle of their ad.  Fascinating!

Dead Animal Removers is a category? More on this shortly...

Hey! It's Reddy Kilowatt! He was the ambassador for electricity "for over seven decades," according to Wikipedia, as well as the subject of a Walter Lantz cartoon.  You can glimpse him in the short-film Star Wars parody HARDWARE WARS.

Also, quit calling our employees at their homes! Sheesh!

This one is strange...I understand getting shoes resoled, appliances rebuilt, and other things back then that we simply don't do today, because so many things have become disposable.  But "mattress rebuilding" is a new concept to me. I can figure out what this means, but it still sounds like there's a joke involved somewhere....

This ad cracks me up every time I get to FREE ICE CUBES & DAILY PAPER.  I keep imagining a 50's tourist, in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, walking up to the front desk and receiving his morning paper in one hand, and an ice cube in the other.

As interesting as this ad is, on so many levels (did the girl get IN the giant champagne glass? If so, is this place still open?)...I am most interested in the "DANCING ORCHESTRA."

Also..............Pickles.  There is a category in the Yellow, I mean Classifieds, for Pickles.  Rural or not, just let that sink in a moment. Yet, it can't sink in, because it makes no freaking sense!

Now we see what all the "Dead Animal Removal" was about.  Right beside this was an ad for extremely inexpensive school cafeteria lunches.  Nah, I'm just kidding!

But here is the best one, though...hide the children!

As hilarious as the mis-grammar-and-punctuated phrase "A PLACE TO EAT AND MEET YOUR FRIENDS" is, my eye traveled down to the bottom to see that the name of the establishment is THE S&M CAFE.  That's all I'm going to say about that.  So much for the innocent 1950's.