Following here are some Carolina postcards that are from my personal collection.  I've come across these over the years from local flea markets, private collections...and even an old barn in Lucia, North Carolina!  Postcard sending and collecting was quite popular in the first two decades of the 20th century.  And they were quite reasonable to purchase and send.  It was one cent to purchase them...and one cent postage to send them.  (OK, two cent postage to send them to Canada and Europe, but still a bargain.)  Millions were sent back then....and fortunately for us....millions have survived.  Let's peruse through them shall we? 

Here's a postcard I found in that particular barn in Lucia, North Carolina back around 1991.  It shows Dilworth and Piedmont Boulevards in Charlotte, North Carolina....postmarked Feb. 20th (and 21st), 1908.  Over a hundred years ago folks!  For the record, these streets are still in use and I believe the houses are still there.  But the streetcar trolley tracks are long gone (or at least buried beneath the pavement.)   And we don't quite have telegraph poles which look like that anymore.  Card was posted to Mrs. Percival Hall of Alexis, North Carolina.  "Dear Sallie, if it isn't raining on Friday you may look for me/Sure won't come if it is raining, for I can come again.  They say the Kirnners* last night was fine and I hope it will be tonight.  Dick."  (*An update here:  a nice person in England told me that the word here is "Kirmess," which is a Dutch word for a carnival and/or a charitable fund raising.  Thank you so very much.)  Several of the postcards shown here were mailed to the tiny crossroads of Alexis, North Carolina, located on Highway 27 in Gaston County.  It's an unincorporated community today, but near the time these postcards were sent, it did incorporate itself for awhile back in 1899.  Alexis was earlier known as Alex's Cross Roads, for an individual named Alexander, who owned some parcels of land in the area.  All of the postcards on this page that were mailed to Alexis, were found in a barn in Lucia, North Carolina nearly two decades ago.  A retired gentleman, who I had met at a local flea in Charlotte (the old long gone Wilkinson Blvd. Flea Market), invited me up to his property to get some old bottles out of his barn he no longer wanted...and threw in the postcards as extra.  (Folks, that is one of the ways that I am able to find this stuff!  You would be surprised how some people will give away historical things...if they know that they've found a good home for it.  And...that it is in the hands of someone who will appreciate it.  Well, you see what I am doing with these items by sharing them with everybody in the world on this website.  Moving right along.) 



OK, here is another postcard I rescued from the Lucia barn.  And it depicts a "colorized" photo of the Greensboro, North Carolina Public Library in Guilford County.  (Wonder if this building has survived?)  The photo must have been taken in summertime, for notice how the rather large ample windows have been pushed open.  (No air-conditioning back then!)  It's postmarked, from what I can make out of it, "Greensboro, Dec. 1916 (?)."  It was mailed to Mrs. Willis E Hall of Alexis, North Carolina.  Some of the writing has been "silverfished" away over the last 90 years.  (Silverfish are small slender silvery bugs that like to eat the starch out of old paper...and are the bane of paper ephemera collectors everywhere.)  However, what I can make out of the writing is, "Arrived safely last...a little cold.  Sallie has slightest headache &...me to write.  Leave here tomorrow for Durham & Raleigh.  Write c/o Yarborough Hotel Raleigh.  Love to all.  Percival."


Here's a postcard of the U. S. Post Office in High Point, North Carolina, also located in Guilford County.  It was postally unused and is probably from either the 19-teens or 1920's.  Quite a solid-looking edifice.


Here's a nice montage of pastoral scenes on a postcard depicting "Scenes Around Connelly Mineral Springs," North Carolina in Burke County, along the foothills of the North Carolina Mountains.  The town got its name from the local mineral spring on the property of Mrs. Elmira Connelly, which when tested by the State Chemist of Virginia, a Mr. W. H. Taylor, was found to contain large amounts of bi-carbonate of iron which, supposedly, according to this chemist, claimed could heal all kinds of sickness and physical ailments.  Soon, travelers by rail, wagon and auto filled the three town hotels in the hopes that this "special water" would do the trick for them.  This postcard is dated six years before the town incorporated.  It is postmarked "Connelly Springs, NC, Sep 19th, 11am, 1914."  It was posted to Mr Milo Rosenman, Catawba College, Newton, N. C."  The note says "Hey! Cousin Milo.  How's our cousin/We are having awfully big time/I hope you have heard from your other cousin by this time.  Are you much lonesome at the table?  Are there any girls at our table?  Your cousin Mary Elsie."

No, not a postcard with a picturesque view on it, but more of a practical correspondence issued by the US Postal Service.  It is already pre-printed with one-cent postage of the then recent tragic personage of President William McKinley (1843-1901), who was assassinated by an anarchist at the Pan-American Expostion of 1901.  Teddy Roosevelt was president and 1904 was an election year.  As that the correspondence was written in the fall of that year, Election Day would not be that far away.  The India ink written on this card has browned with age, as all old India ink does with time.  And the correspondence here has nothing to do with the presidential politics that was, no doubt, on a lot of people's mind at the time.  It is, rather, a note from a mother to her daughter down in the Eastern part of North Carolina.  It's postmarked "Matthews, N. C., Sep 28th, 1904" the re-postmarked on the back "Chadbourn, N. C. Sep 30."  It took two days for this card to travel from Mecklenburg County to Chadbourn.  Not bad time for the mail back then.)  It was mailed to a Miss Caldwell Hoyle, of the Carolina Hoyle family clan, in Chadbourn, North Carolina.  The correspondence is from her mother, and is more long-winded than most postcards of this era (but please remember "Mamma" wrote it).  It is interesting to read, and upon getting to the end of it...tragic.  I wonder what that accident in Knoxville, Tennesse, way back in 1904 was all about.  I wonder if it's in reference to a train wreck, as that automobiles were few and far between in that year.  (Could it have been the Newmarket train wreck of 1904?)  I've done my best here to make out the old script, but some of it is lost to me.

Dear Caldwell, Helen's letter came yesterday, so glad to glad to hear from him again (.)  If you do not write because you think Mamma has neglected you.  Well, suppose I have, which is not the case, does not my faithfulness in the least enter (?)  (Can't make out the words here) some consideration.  Love suffereth long and is kind--beneath are things behindeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.--And now I faileth.  Papa, Maude and myself came over on C-------(not sure what that word is) last evening.  (Can't make out the words here.)  Think of it!  Mr. Earle came from home with Maude.  She had one the tables made $10.00.  Did Helen get "Cutter(?)"  Glad she is pleased with her work.  Tell us about yours.  Lovingly Mamma!  (Written on the side of the postcard:  Did you see accident 14(?)  That awful wreck in Knoxville, Tenn?  Cousin Melvin Grant (?) was killed.

Well not exactly a normal North Carolina scene, as that it depicts the U. S. S. Battleship Maine, whose mysterious explosion thereof, helped ignite the Spanish-American War of 1898.  With a postmark date of 1916, It had only been 18 years since that notorious event happened, so it wasn't unusual to still find Spanish-American War sentiment even at this later date.  Not to mention World War I (or the Great War as it was called then) was being waged in Europe at the time, while our nation stayed out of the fray.  Nothwithstanding our nation's isolation, in 1916 our country was  being called to "preparedness" for a possible war with Europe, but most of our US troops were involved with the Mexican revolution which was tearing that country apart that fateful year as well.  So, depicting the Battleship Maine in the middle of all of these then current events, was probably appropriate.  I included it on this page because it had a Carolina postmark.  It came out of the same barn in Lucia, North Carolina and was posted from Columbia, South Carolina, April 12th, 3-pm, 1916."  It was mailed to Mrs. Wil---Hall, Alexis, North Carolina.  The message was a simple one:  Dear Grannie/I wish you were here.  Sarah Graham Hall."  It is important to know that the U. S S. Maine depicted here is the one that was built in 1902, four years after the more star-crossed one was sunk.  And so for those who are students of the Spanish-American War, this postcard gives these stats about the famous battleship as follows:  U. S. Battleship Maine.  Displacement, about 13,500 tons; speed 18 knots; 16,000 H.P.  Length, 494 ft; beam 72 1/4 ft.; draught 24ft.  Crew of 798 men.  Carries four 12 in. guns, sixteen 6 in. guns and 10 smaller guns.  Two 18 in. torpedo tubes.  Armor belt, amid-ships, 1 ins.; turrets, 12 ins.  Completed 1902. Cost $5,381903.


   
Coming from that same Lucia barn again is what was then called a "real photo" postcard of this delightful African-American child.  Postcards like this were sort of like "vanity" cards that were very popular back in the 19-teens.  People would have postcards made up of themselves to send to family...and maybe even sweethearts!  When I scanned this card some years ago, I put a caption on it wondering if this was a local North Carolina child.  Probably so.  If alive, he or she would probably be in their 90's now.  Nothing was written on the back of it, nor was it postally used.  It was probably just kept and cherished along with other old family photographs now long gone.




Here is a postcard that came from my late Uncle Mont L. Hill's estate, who was born 1900 in Thomasville, North Carolina, Davie County (died 1998), and who spent most of his life in Kannapolis, North Carolina.  He was circus barker, sometime bootlegger and patent medicine salesman.  He even had a medicine show!  His postcards were indicative of the travels he took in the South.  Here is a postcard depicting the Montgomery Building (Montgomery Ward perhaps?) in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which was sent to his brother, Ernest Hill, in Thomasville, North Carolina.  It's postmarked "Spartanburg, South Carolina, Aug. 26, 1926."  The card was published by Southern Post Card Co. of Asheville, North Carolina.  His message, as much as I can make out of it, is as such: "Dear Brother, I am in South Carolina/Am Leaving today....This is a big place.  I wish you could see it.  I hope you are well/I am well and happy/Tell Myrtle and all hello and be good...from Brother"

Please check back as that I will most likely have more old-time Carolina Postcards on this site for your viewing in the near future.
   

Just a small disclaimer here:  many of the ephemeral artifacts found on this website are now, due to age, in the public domain and from my private collection.  Items and quotes of a more recent vintage, that are used here in part for newsworthy commentary and/or educational purposes, are covered by the Fair Use Act of the US Copyright Office.  Thank you.   

dirkallman@carolinahistoryproject.com