u/H2ost5555

I was crazy about collecting insulators in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I downsized my large collection but still have a small collection of more rare and unusual glass. I lived a few miles from the Chicago and Great Western Railway in northern Illinois, and when they went belly up I harvested lots of cool pieces.

Here are 4 Cadiz insulators that are my favorites. The two middle ones are the most common CD 133.4 style, the one on the right is a rare CD 132 with a beaded base. I have no idea about the leftmost one, similar to the 133.4 but a bit larger.

All 4 have the classic PAT’D embossing on base. The CD 132 has a large 2 embossed on the upper crown.

Probably the lime green one with swirly amber and large bubbles is my favorite. I met Marion Milholland at a show in the early 70’s and he desperately wanted to buy the 132 due to the beaded base.

All 4 were found in a 1/4 mile section of track. I traveled 10-20 miles in each direction looking for more but there were none to be found.

My wife and I were on a walk in downtown St Pete and came up on a huge windowless building, I knew it had to be the main CO back in the day, and on one end it had a platform tower that held microwave horns in the past.

Looked it up online and the building complex was started as a General Telephone CO in the 1920’s, later AT&T, now Frontier occupies a section of the large building.