I'm still stunned I found this at Rogers Community Auction over the weekend. It's a postcard booklet, with locations printed on the front and back. The postmark is dated September 1914. I paid $5 for it.
Allegheny County Courthouse, Downtown Pittsburgh
St. Paul Cathedral, Oakland
Mercy Hospital, Uptown
Allegheny General Hospital, North Side
Heinz Residence, East Liberty
Highland Park Zoo, Highland Park (Now just the Pittsburgh Zoo)
Baseball Park, aka Forbes Field, Oakland
"New" University of Pittsburgh, Oakland
Forbes Field, Oakland
Carnegie Technical School, Squirrel Hill (Now Carnegie Mellon University)
Pennsylvania Railroad Union Station, Downtown Pittsburgh
Hotel Schenley, Oakland (Now the William Pitt Union at the University of Pittsburgh)
There were a few other ways to confirm this is from 1914.
First, Pittsburgh is spelled with an H on these. From the 1890s until 1911, the city was spelled Pittsburg. Also, there are pictured of Forbes Field and Exposition Park in this collection. There was only a small time frame when both existed at the same time: Forbes Field was built in 1909; Exposition Park (pictured in the "Smoky City" photo) was used until 1915.
It's kind of cool that most of the buildings, with the exception of Forbes Field and the Exposition buildings, are still in existence. Not sure about the fate of the Fort Wayne Depot and Pittsburgh Post Office buildings pictured. Other buildings, while still standing, have changed significantly or have been repurposed. For instance, as I mentioned above, the Schenley Hotel is now the student union building at Pitt. Also, the Allegheny Post Office, in North Side, now houses the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.
One other thing I did: I searched the name Helen Duncan, of Saltsburg, since this booklet was addressed to her. She was born in September 1904, so she received this booklet right around her 10th birthday. And I'm guessing she held onto it for a long time, or collected them. The seller at Rogers had a few other booklets featuring other cities, so she could've collected them. I didn't see whether they were all addressed to her or not.
Lastly, the booklet had postcard photos on the front and back, instead of the traditional open space to write a note. And they were all attached accordion style. That's something I've never seen before.
Have you ever been curious as to what your hometown looked like 100 years ago? How much have things changed over the last century?
