Scottsville Museum

Postcards

  • Auto Endurance Test on Valley Street, 1914

    Auto Endurance Test on Valley Street, 1914

    Auto Endurance Test on Valley Street, 1914; Image Number: RollTwoNeg20A

    Dr. L.R. Stinson owned the first car in Scottsville, a two-cylinder, bright-red, 1910 Maxwell. Soon these ‘motorized carriages’ were rattling the plank floor on the new town bridge. Cars altered Scottsville’s way of life greatly, wiping out the ferry, carriages and carts, and the blacksmith shop and stable on the corner of Valley and Main Streets.

    See image below as a guide to the identities of several people in this photo:


    (1) Jackson Beal, Mayor of Scottsville for 25 years and a prominent businessman who owned the Beal Building on Valley Street. He married Mary Emma Bledsoe of Fluvanna Co., Virginia, and lived at Old Hall on Harrison Street.
    (2) George Tapscott.
    (3) Dr. L.R. Stinson of Buckingham Co., Virginia, who graduated from UVA’s Medical School and around the turn of the century and set up his practice in Scottsville.
    (4) Wilbur Dameron.
    (5) David Pitts, President of the National Bank on Valley Street and a member of the Virginia General Assembly.
    (6) Mr. Jones.
    (7) Gilbert Bell.
    (8) Benjamine Dorrier.

    Copyright © 2018 by Scottsville Museum

    Image Located On: Capturing Our Heritage, CD3
    RollTwoNeg20A.tif
    RollTwoNeg20A.jpg
    RollTwoNeg20A.psd

  • The Postcard Collection

    The Postcard Collection

    Before 1907, the U.S. Post Office did not permit writing a message on the address side of postcards. For that reason, many U.S. picture postcards mailed before then had messages written across their fronts.

    Postcards with a divided back finally were permitted in the U.S. in March 1907; addresses were to be written on the postcard’s right side, and messages on the left. At that point in American history, the postcard hobby quickly became a public addiction, and publishers produced millions of cards in this era.

    Photographers like Scottsville’s William Burgess earned a good living by photographing local scenes and people to be printed as postcards via a lithographic process. Burgess traveled all over Central Virginia to take such photographs and to sell his postcards to local stores.

    When Burgess died in 1935, his estate contained over 485,000 postcards of various Virginia scenes and people. Some of these extant Burgess postcards are shown below and can be distinguished from other photographers’ work on this webpage by the ‘W.E. Burgess’ or ‘Idylwood Studio’ markings that Burgess usually put on the front of his postcards.

    Cars on Parade • Image Number: B51bcdB16
    C&O Railway Station, Scottsville • Image Number: B51dcdB16
    Birdseye View of Scottsville • Image Number: B56dcdB16
    Idylwood • Image Number: B53acdB16
    Scottsville Bridge • Image Number: B53bcdB16
    Scottsville High School on West Main • Image Number: B53ccdB16
    Horseshoe Bend and Valley Street, Scottsville • Image Number: B53dcdB16
    Scottsville’s ‘School on the Hill’ • Image Number: B54bcdB16
    Scottsville Flour Mills and C&O Depot • Image Number: B54dcdB16
    Bird’s Eye View of Scottsville • Image Number:B55ccdB16
    Birdseye View of Scottsville • Image Number: B56dcdB16
    Birdseye View of Scottsville Over a Mammoth Potato Patch • Image Number: B57acdB16
    Pine Knot, Hunting Lodge of Theodore Roosevelt ª Image Number: B68acdB16
    Confederate Reunion in Scottsville, 1908 • Image Number: B73cdB17
    Valley Street in Scottsville • Image Number: B111cdB17
    Horseshoe Bend of the James River, Scottsville • Image Number: B112cdB17
    Valley Street in Scottsville, 1907 • Image Number: H136cdME04
    Confederate Reunion in Scottsville, 1908 • Image Number: J87cdE6
    Hatton Ferry, Est. 1870 • Image Number: RM09cdRM08
    Historic Hatton Ferry (back) • Image Number: RM09cdRM08HattonFerry_back
    Moore’s Pond • Image Number: Roll8Neg4
    Valley Street, Scottsville • Image Number: Roll8Neg24A
    Horse Shoe Bend, Scottsville • Image Number: WP03cdWP01
    A View of Scottsville from Drever’s Hill • Image Number: WP05cdWP01
    C&O Railway Bridge, Bremo, VA • Image Number: WP07cdWP01
    Crossing of C&O, Seaboard and Southern Railwasy – Richmond, Va. • Image Number: WP09cdWP01

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