Downtown Lorain Then & Then

Archivist and historian Dennis Lamont saw my late 1950s postcard yesterday of Downtown Lorain, and sent me some fascinating images of the same scene decades earlier.

Here's one from the early 1900s (below). Dennis notes that the double car tracks dates the photo around or after 1906. Also note the 'Babcock & Veon Insurance' sign at left, which was useful to me in determining a time frame for the photo as we shall see below.

Here's a RPPC (Real Photo Post Card) from the Willis Leiter Studio in Lorain (below). This is after the above photo, because now (according to the sign) A.H. Babcock has his own insurance and realty company as per the later city directories.

And here's a postcard variation (below) of the identical Leiter shot – angled differently, cropped, hand-tinted and with telephone poles and wires removed! No wonder the scene on this postcard (which I've seen before) has always made Lorain look like a one horse town, as opposed to the bustling town in the Leiter photo.

I had a copy of this postcard a few years ago that was postmarked 1912.

Special thanks to Dennis Lamont for sharing his photos.