Vintage Streetscapes

Personally I find vintage streetscapes to be fascinating time capsules of history. Here are a few of my recent acquisitions and feel free to share some of yours in this thread.

Cheers,
Joe2007

Cool postcards. It's fun to watch the changes over the years too when it's an area that you are personally familiar with.

Joe2007: You could take your interest to the next level by using Google StreetView to illustrate what each scene looks like today.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Thank you, though my street scenes will be different than your as I collect Humboldt and Mendocino county, the two largest Redwood producing counties in California. All but one of the following are small Mendocino county towns, and don't show a lot of activity.
Calpella, showing the Post office. 1918




Elk, looking south 1911





Elk, lookin north 1912




This next card is a pre street scene, Camp 8 became the town of Gracy





Fort Bragg is and was the 2nd largest city in Mendocino County, and the next 5 cards show different streets or views.











A mile south east of Fort Bragg, main street Noyo crossing the river of the same name.




These next two are from Maxwell Cal, mailed on the same day. Looks like every one hitched their horse over by the store.







Mendocino






The next 4 cards are of the main street of Point Arena, across a 40 year span, 1908 to 1948. I lived in Point Arena in 1948, but was only 3 years old.













A couple of cards sent to Redwine in Mendocino;






And lastly, Willits, Mendocino's 3rd largest city

Thanks for the suggestions!




As part of a college project a few years back I researched a neighborhood in my city and illustrated how it changed over time. I located Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of the area at the turn-of-the-century and found a bunch of old photos and postcards from the same era. I have to say it was a bit depressing how much of the old urban fabric was lost in the mid to late 20th century and is still being lost to a lesser extent today. Lots of old stately homes and architecturally unique commercial buildings/districts gone forever .... to replaced with 1960-70's strip malls and bland apartment blocks which are now rundown. Urban renewal gutted a lot of cities in the Midwest. It is sad since a good portion these demolished buildings would be treasures today in high demand with urban professionals.

littleriverphil,

Those are great!

A nice one from Fairbury Nebraska 1914. unfortunately a little bit of damage. Maybe I will find/post a few more, I have not yet been everywhere while clearing out my attic.

Very nice collection as well as seeing how the towns grew. There's a really cool website called historic areials @ http://www.historicaerials.com/ where you can see some really amazing pictures.

Have added a few more since my last post.

More recent than the other cards that have been posted in this thread, but here's a postcard I have of Main Street in my hometown, Visalia, California, around the time that my mother and her parents moved there from New York.

Keep them coming! These are very nice!

My first attempt at adding a picture here...I recently found this card at the Brimfield postcard building

The Mendocino and Pt Arena views above are really pleasing to view!

I picked up this on at the Brookline NH postcard show last weekend

Thank you, I'm rather fond of those myself.

1909 postmarked postcard view of Plymouth Street in Bremen, Indiana. This aerial view showed two columns of students walking east on Plymouth Street. They appear to be turning south at Center Street. The sidewalks were wet in places and it must have been a chilly day. The photographer was probably on the second floor of the building on the northwest corner at Plymouth and Jackson streets. The wood frame building across the street was on the northeast corner of that intersection. That building was still there and looking very good as of 2013.



1910 postmarked postcard view of Main Street looking east in Richmond, Indiana. This was the intersection at Seventh Street. A very large number of pedestrians were on the sidewalks as well as in the street. In the foreground, a girl was running across the street and a young man was riding a bicycle. Nearby, a woman was pushing a baby stroller across the street while a couple in their buggy waited for her to pass.



c1910 postcard view of a snowy Jefferson Street in Huntington, Indiana. This was a major snowstorm. The man in the foreground was taking a break from shoveling the snow to pose for the photographer. The photographer was looking southwest on Jefferson Street from midway between Matilda (now known as Park Street) and Washington Streets. He was probably standing in front of the Huntington Theatre.

Marysville, Ohio center of town circa 1910.

I lived in Marysville from the mid eighties til the early nineties and nothing was much different other than the names of the businesses.