Monday, April 4, 2011

Then & Now #4




Continuing on with the before & after pictures...

We've shown Wellsville's old City Hall before but these are a couple of new ones for us. The first is a snap shot that is beginning to crumble with no date. We're guessing it was taken sometime in the first couple of the 1900 decades. Notice the Chamber of Commerce offices on the second floor windows.

The second picture is a postcard with a 1906 post mark,issued by Fuller's Stationery Store. The double doors on the right was at one time the Wellsville Fire Station.

Before Shoub Towers were built City Hall was located at 5th & Main. You can left click on any picture to enlarge.

ole nib

3 comments:

Phil L. said...

An awesome old picture, with some cool details! It seems a shame so many buildings like this haven't survived.

One detail in this picture - that also showed up in both of your "Then & Now" pictures from March 29 - is what appears to be trolley tracks on Main St. Furthermore, last week's pictures seem to show 3 rails, evenly spaced.

What is known of the history of the Main St. tracks in these pictures?

Once again: Thanks for sharing these great historical items!

Phil

************* said...

Good question Phil. It's something we want to check the files for and see if there is anything on the trolley history. We got another picture we're working on showing rail ties stacked up that got us wondering.

The River Museum has some old newspapers which we haven't gotten into yet. However, we've been told it is a far from complete. There's a lot of Wellsville history that's long gone.

Did you notice the dirt street in the City Hall pictures and the one from the 600 block of Main? They were taken before bricks were laid. Check the Bert Oyster picture to see the brick.

nib

Phil L. said...

nib -

Very interesting! It seems like we should be able to find out when the brick was laid on Main St. That would have been big news at the time.

It's difficult to distinguish much detail about the street surface in some of the pictures - though I find it curious that the brick sidewalk is very noticeable in the shot from the 600 block of Main. I can't imagine how difficult it was to maintain rails built into a dirt street. A typical winter would have been tough on the street.

Thanks for keeping the history in these pictures alive for all of us!

Phil