Gothenburg Panarama

Gothenburg in 1919

Recently, the Archive acquired a large photo album from a flea market dealer; the album had once owned by a family who lived in Gothenburg, Nebraska, and the photos all seem to be dated from 1907-1915. The album itself was in extremely poor condition, with the covers and the binding long gone, meaning it's really just a stack of very tattered and torn pages. Some of the photos had previously been removed (possibly by other buyers at the flea market), and most are just family photos. Some, however, give an amazing insight into this small midwestern farming and railroad town in the early 1900s. Three of the photos show an overview of the town taken from top of one of the grain elevators along the Union Pacific Railroad. A fourth photo, taken at a different time (based on the paper used for the print), appears to show the part of town on the south side of the tracks.

Stitched panarama of three individual photos taken from one of Gothenburg's grain elevators

Google Earth view of the same area today

Gothenburg can trace its origins to 1882 when Swedish immigrant Olof Bergstrom established a homestead in Dawson County. As a land agent for the Union Pacific Railroad, he helped select the town site as a coaling and watering stop for the railroad's steam locomotives, and the railroad laid out the original eight-block street plan in 1884; the town was incorporated a year later. Bergstrom maintained his ties with the Old Country, and a number of other Swedish immigrants followed him and settled in Gothenburg, named after the city in Sweden.

Photo No. 1 in the series looks northwest along the railroad tracks and Lincoln Highway

Avenue G is in the immediate foreground of the above photo, which later would be built as an overpass. Ave. F is just this side of the Pabst Saloon, and Lake Street, the main business street, is just beyond. At the far left is the coaling tower for the Union Pacific locomotives, along with the water spout. The grain mill in the middle distance would later burn, and a series of photos of that catastrophy will be featured in an upcoming post.

Pabst Saloon - a frontal view will be included in an upcoming post. 

Building featuring advertising signs for Tom Keene Cigars and Velvet Tobacco.

One thing that I find fascinating about these three photos is what's not in them: in spite of there being at least two garages in town, there is not a single automobile. There are a few scattered wagons and two steam-powered farm tractors (one with a combine), and in this whole panaramic town view, only five people! (I'll leave it to you the reader to play a bit of Where's Waldo Gothenburgite).

Photo No. 2 in the series

According to the 1919 map at the top of this post, there were two large local landowners with the name Norsworthy, J. E. Norsworthy, and J. H. Norsworthy.

The Blacksmith shop with a sign advertising the Auto Garage "one block south". That would suggest that there were at least two garages in town, as The Auditorium Garage (below) is a couple blocks north of this location.

The Auditorium Garage (the name somewhat mystifies me), significant because in a series of photos we'll feature in an upcoming post, it burns to the ground.

Photo No. 3 in the series

Most of the outhouses in view seem to have his-and-hers stalls

This photo, which appears to show the part of Gothenburg south of the UP tracks, was taken at a different time that the other three, based on the photo paper used. Again, though, no cars nor people can be seen.

Main Street, White, South Dakota

If there's a place in the mid-west the epitomizes "out in the middle of nowhere", it's the lovely town of White, South Dakota. Stuck over on the eastern-most side of the state, White (today) covers 0.99 square miles with a few houses, several churches, an ag coop and a bustling population of 491 people. It was founded in 1884, and named after W. H. White, the area's first settler.

Our photo is a real-photo postcard (AZO 4-triangles-up, a code on the back meaning that the paper was produced sometime between 1904 and 1918), and someone took the time to note that the it was taken on Hallowe'en. The view is looking east along unpaved Main Street, and not a single automobile is in sight, everything is still horse-drawn.

The oddest part, though, is the large harvester parked on the street.

And hiding in the shadows is an old horse-drawn rake.

Here's a Google Maps view of White....just not much there!

Posing on the Tankhouse

Of all the vintage family-on-the-farm photographic portraits that I've seen, this has to be the most unusual and original posing.

Why climb all the way up there - and take a little child - when you're wearing a full-length dress like that?

Don't miss the little dog hiding in the shadows

From the shape of the photographer's shadow, I'm guessing it was a woman

Down on the farm - Horse Power

In the days when it took a lot of man- (and horse) power to bring in the harvest, a farmer's neighbors could be counted on to show up with their teams of horses to help out. Is that what this photo shows? Or is this just a bigger operation with a lot of hands employed? Either way, it looks like this crew is getting ready to do some serious work.

Down on the Farm - Grampa's Horses

This little girl, I wonder if years later she thought about those days on Grampa's farm with his horses, how big and strong they were. I wonder if she looked back on those days as magical, from a different era, when the world was a simpler place. The tack indicates that these horses were set up to pull a wagon.

The Deluxe Barn

This is one massive barn and silo. And a cool ditcher parked off to the side.

Our House - 3 - Hannke Farm

As itinerent house photographers go, the guy who shot this one left a lot of quality to be desired. Typically such photographers would operate out of a crude, portable darkroom, but at least most took relatively clear photos and took the time to cut the paper straight before mounting it to the backing board.

Curiously, only one man appears in this photo, and he's stepped back from the line of the five women.

Someone has written "Hannke Farm" on the lower portion of the board. FindAGrave.com only contains three listings for the surname "Hannke", all of whom are buried in the town of Cataract, Monroe County, Wisconsin. John H. Hannke was born in 1849 and died in 1927, which would be about the right age to appear in a photo of this era. He married Anna Merow Hannke (1860 to 1930). They had a daughter Theresa A. Hannke Boisen (1882-1969) and a son Otto (who died young of pneumonia, 1880-1904). It appears that a lot of Boisen descendents are alive and well, so if any stumble on this page while doing genealogy research, drop a comment below!

Wheatley Flour Mill

For today, this blog should be called "Lost Canada Found". We are very fortunate that an anonymous someone chose to write some information on the back of this photograph, so that we know that this was taken in Wheatley, Ontario on September 12, 1899.

The original albumen print is extremely faded, but a trip through
Adobe Camera Raw's tools recovered a lot of detail.

Wheatley is a small community of about 3,000 people located on the shore of Lake Erie, just a few miles southeast of Detroit, Michigan.

The text handwritten on the back of the photograph reads:

This "chop & grist" mill is located in Wheatley, Ontario, and was once owned by my grandfather and father (Daniel and William Omstead). They also owned a famr a mile distant. This mill was sold and the mill in Comber purchased in 1903.

I was fortunate to be able to get ahold of Linda Pearce, a member of the Heritage Society in Wheatley, who sent me a clipping on the mill which reads:

The Wheatley Flour Mill was built around 1880 on the east side of Wheatley. Dan Omstead was the owner of the mill in the 1890s. He produced very fine flour at the mill. In 1899 he sold it to Mr. Vizzard. Mr. Wemp owned it next. Cameron Whitesell bought it from Mr. Wemp in 1921.

Engines were changed from natural gas to electric by John Dean in July 1930. The gas engines had exploded, causing a fire, in 1929. Around 1941 he tore down the old mill, built the new one with his own design and set up all his machinery and elevators.

At the back of the old mill they had built a pig pen and hen house where they experimented with their own [feed] formulas. Later they marketed Whitesell's Big 18% laying mash. The formula was made up and tried by Russell Whitesell. When the new mill was made over, they incorporated the existing pig pen and hen house into it.

He sold the mill in 1952 to Mr. Roy Bowman.

A search of several genealogy sites suggests that Daniel Omstead (alternately listed as Olmstead) was born in 1844 and died in Wheatley in November, 1924, an date range which fits the date of the photograph.

Here's a link to Google Maps showing the current location of the Wheatley Grain Elevator, presumably the former site of our photo.

Painted on the side of the building appears to read "Wheatley Flour Mills"

FamilyPhotoFriday: A Farm Family

Is there anything more quintessentially American than a hard-working farm family?

Down on the Farm: A Barn, A Forest and Longjohns

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 

Everyone has their imagined Paradise, I would think, and this would be awfully close to mine: A homestead upon a forested lake (or is that an inlet from the sea? Some descent sized waves there, just beyond the barn). And yes, I dare say those are someone's longjohns hanging on the clothesline.

Children in the Garden

Three girls and a boy playing on a farm. Sometimes it seems a bit surreal to look at a photo like this of children merrily and innocently playing, caught in the moment by the camera, and then likely not thinking much of it after that. Though the moment was frozen, the children were not, and based on the age of the photo, they have since lived their whole lives and are now gone from this world.

Our House - Part 1

For the third #TBT in each month, we feature a photo of an ordinary house, usually with the owners posing proudly.

This is possibly the oldest photograph in the Archive's collection, and is from the post-Civil War era. In very light pencil on the back it reads, "Uncle Jim and Aunt Nell Tharp". In pen, written much later, it idicates that the photo was owned by "Mrs. Moufield".

Some details can be brought out by enhancing the contrast. There's still snow on the roof and ground, but it must not be terribly cold, as the wife isn't bundled up in a coat.