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!

Parsonage in the Snow

This winter street scene in what appears to be a western town (sparse pine trees and rocks in the distance suggest a scene typical of New Mexico or Idaho) is accompanied by a puzzling pencil inscription: "Parsonage first, Bullis in distance." Presumably, then the nearby house is some church's parsonage, and the house farther away belongs to a family with the surname Bullis.

Main Street, Anytown USA

Once upon a time, an early photographer decided to snap a photo looking down this street. I have no idea why, maybe he just wanted to record a moment in time on an ordinary day. Not an automobile is in site. One can almost imagine that this is a sunny, warm, muggy July day, the sky is blue, the trees are green, it's rained recently and the street is still muddy.

The image in this albumen print has faded drastically, but below an enhanced copy brings out details.

Patriotic Parade

It's the Fourth of July (okay, it will be in a couple of days), and it's time for a patriotic parade down main street of just about any town in the midwest. From the paper, I'm guessing this is sometime in the 1940s.