This town really needed a movie theater in 1907

[layla]

This picture totally cracks me up. It's basically the entire population of Fairbanks, circa 1907, standing on the banks of the river watching the ice go out. Yes: in 1907, ice floes were a popular spectator sport! XD

... I guess the paint drying championships must have been next week.

(Possibly-interesting note for non-Fairbanksans: The building at top left, on the far bank of the river, that says "Machinery" and "Samson" is Samson's Hardware, which is still there and still in business. About a block behind it, in the away-from-river direction, is where the present-day News-Miner building is located, where I work.)

Comments

[acoustic-rob.livejournal.com]

I love old history as well. (Not that Houston's got any of it, *grump*.) I remember seeing an old map of Urbana back when I lived there...did you know that Green Street was once called High Street? Explains why the next road south of it is called Dry Street....

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

*snort* After living there, I can also see why "dry" would be a distinctive enough condition to name a street after it...

I love that stuff. One year for a Christmas present for my grandmother, I bought a photographic history of Champaign-Urbana and then went around town taking pictures of all the places in the book that I could find. It was actually really fun -- it was neat to see what was still there, and what had become shopping malls or parking lots, and I had some very interesting conversations with the proprietors of some of the remaining businesses when I explained what I was doing and asked if I could wander around their business taking pictures.