Postcards Serve as Memories for Visitors to Mackinac Island
By Bernie Nguyen

Tim Leeper, manager of The Big Store with the Little Prices, poses with racks of postcards on display. The Big Store sells more than 50,000 postcards a year.

The postcard, a steadfast souvenir that has proved its timelessness against the winds of change, continues to be one of the biggest souvenir sellers on Mackinac Island, hovering among Town Crier newspapers and classic fudge treats as the best way to send a piece of Mackinac memories. Postcards, however, serve a better purpose than photographs of vacation memories and can be mailed for less postage than a letter. They document of popular culture and social trends.

John Penrod of the Penrod/Hiawatha card company, said much of the postcard's appeal lies in its ties to history.

Penrod/Hiawatha provides an estimated half-million postcards to Mackinac Island souvenir shops. The company was founded in 1954 when the Hiawatha Card Company began making postcards for the Mackinac Straits area. With the construction of the Mackinac Bridge, the Hiawatha company did very well, and in 1969, owners Don and Lucy Gridley decided to retire and sold their business to Penrod Studio, which had begun selling postcards in the Mackinac Straits area in 1958.

Mr. Penrod, whose years in the postcard business have taught him a great deal about the trends of popular culture, said the common four-inch by six-inch postcard, today's standard size, began its popularity in 1969.

"The four-by-six card was the European style," he explained, and detailed how Penrod/Hiawatha started its four-by-six test circulation on Mackinac Island. These cards became much more popular than their 3.5-by-5.5-inch predecessors, and soon became the standard issue size for all postcards in the U.S.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the most popular postcards were detailed with a scalloped edge, but were overtaken in popularity by bold, black backgrounds with large, white lettering and inset photographs. The advent of computer technology has introduced new features, such as multiple images.

Now, he said, a postcard may have all the churches of Mackinac Island on it, rather than four separate cards of each church.

He sees, however, a return to simpler designs.

"It may be going back to more single pictures, as opposed to the multiple images," he said. "I think the trend is, to a certain extent, coming back to single picture cards."

One trend Mr. Penrod has seen over the last 40 years is a decline in the number of postcards actually mailed.

"In reality," he said, "probably as many postcards that are purchased get taken home as get mailed."

He attributes this in part to the faster technology of email, and, generally, to the fast-paced lifestyle that no longer makes waiting for a reply by mail an appealing option, especially with telephones and computers easily at hand.

Tim Leeper, manager of The Big Store with the Little Prices on Main Street, feels that postcards are a near-perfect way to preserve images of the Island for a good price. Often, he adds, the cost of a postcard is less than the fee for developing photographs from a camera, and the pictures are nearly always better than those taken by the typical tourist. Postcards, he adds, are also conveniently portable and fit well into scrapbooks and albums.

"We sell over 50,000 a year," he said. "It's a great way to bring home memories of the places you've visited."

Mr. Penrod agreed, saying that visitors who are unable to come during certain times on the Island, such as the Lilac Festival, may sometimes look to postcards as a way of preserving images of those events that they've missed.

There are basic standards for the postcards sold at The Big Store, said Mr. Leeper, explaining that the most popular images are the mainstay of any souvenir shop's postcard inventory. The three main categories for postcard images are the Mackinac Bridge, Grand Hotel, and Main Street.

"There's usually one big seller per category," Mr. Leeper said. For the Mackinac Bridge, popular images are often those taken at night, when the lights reflect off the water and make for a well composed photograph. For Grand Hotel, Mr. Leeper said, the best seller is a postcard that shows a horse-drawn carriage in the foreground with the hotel in the back. Cards featuring Main Street are most popular when they reflect what the visitor has seen, meaning a view of the buildings and crowds of people along with the horse-drawn carriages.

Mr. Penrod explained that crowded Main Street photos are often the best sellers because they reflect what visitors have seen and experienced, since nearly everyone who comes to the Island steps off the ferry dock and onto a bustling street filled with bicycles, horses, and people.

A trend that recently regained popularity is the humorous postcard, which, on Mackinac Island, often make jokes about Mackinac's fudge. Several years ago, when the postcard first came in, Mr. Leeper said, the store couldn't keep it in stock. The card remains a strong seller.

Ron Crandel, purchasing director for Mackinac State Historic Parks, said the Park mostly uses postcards of its own design, focusing on images that feature park attractions such as Fort Mackinac, often taken by employees.

The history of postcards on Mackinac Island has been documented in "Wish You Were Here," a book about the history of postcards on Mackinac Island. The book features photographs of vintage postcards and descriptions of trends such as the wooden and linen postcards that have since gone out of fashion. Author Steve Brisson, who authored the book, said that he feels that the postcard has survived as a souvenir because people like to collect them, in addition to mailing them.

"It's a high quality photographic image," he said. "The postcards are going to be of the popular sites, and on Mackinac, those popular spots have remained the same."

The message, too, has remained the same.

"Having a great time," Mr. Penrod said of what people often write. "Wish you were here."