The ship was sunk just six months after this card was sent. Read about her terrible fate here.
And I hope the lady with the excellent handwriting was able to see Gone With the Wind fairly soon up in Marion.
Tag Archives: Gate City VA
Nickels Department Store, Gate City, VA.
The writing is all in pencil. The postmark is double stamped and blurry. The interesting thing is that the card, in the upper left, is dated “Feb. 2, 1912”, but the postmark shows it was mailed on January (something) 1912.
Reading on: “Hurry answer soon Hello Hazel how are you by this time I am just fine and having a fine old time tell Bess to send me a card will be home in next month” The author was not big on punctuation.
Mailed to Miss Hazel Lessley, Arcadia, Tenn. Arcadia, formerly known as Reedy Creek Settlement, is one of the earliest clumps of humanity along Bloomingdale Road. We always used to call it Bloomingdale Pike (indicating at some time in the past it was a private road…you had to pay to have the pike across the road lifted so you could get through).
Anyway, there are 36 men, women and children all lined up across the front. The photo was maybe taken in April or May, since the people aren’t wearing winter clothes and there’s some sign, perhaps a circus sign, in the show window to the left advertising an upcoming May 30 performance.
As is common with cards of this vintage, there’s no publisher name shown. There may be an inventory number or other information under the stamp, but I’m not even going to try to steam it off.
Trailways Token
I found this locally. In 1963, according to an ad in the Kingsport Times-News, Tays Farmer was the parts department manager at Daugherty Bros. Chevrolet in Gate City. The worn notch at the top indicates it was hanging off something for quite a while. There’s a blackening around the notch. In the center front is what remains of a Trailways logo. On the back it states “Travel Bus Trailways”. (Only so much you can do within a circle, word-wise)
If that is, indeed, a worn Trailways logo on the front, it’s the National Trailways Bus System logo and dates this to the ’50s.
Later: on the ‘net, I managed to find another Trailways token very similar to this one, but from Bybee VA. On that token, the side with the name on it is the reverse of this one; i.e., the “Travel Bus Trailways” side has the name on it.
This token is considered rare.
Uncle Bob's Pix 