The Grand Haven Area 1905-1975 in Vintage Postcards

By Wallace K. Ewing Ph.D., David H. Seibold D.D.S. and Tri-Cities Historical Museum

By the start of the 20th century, the Grand Haven area had begun to establish itself as a desirable vacation spot, as well as the center of a vigorous manufacturing base. Trains, stately steamers, and private automobiles brought visitors to the resorts of their choice, while many new companies joined other well-established firms, broadening employment opportunities for local workers. It was a time of significant change, and the picture postcard helped record those changes. In this book, a companion to The Grand Haven Area: 1860-1960, the history of Grand Haven and the surrounding area is revealed through picture postcards. Lakeshore scenes, resorts, and cottages are paired with images of bridges, streets, homes, and people at work and play to document a remarkable era of originality, enjoyment, and progress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jun 17, 2003
• ISBN: 9781439613849

Wallace K. Ewing Ph.D.

Co-authors Wallace Ewing and David Seibold are both past board members of the Tri-Cities Historical Museum.

Book preview

D.D.S.

INTRODUCTION

Picture postcards were to the early 1900s what email is to the early 21st century: an easy, efficient, and economical way to correspond with friends and family. Having a wonderful time, wish you were here, came about in the heyday of the picture postcard. Many cards were never mailed, but were saved as personal reminders of a trip or vacation to someplace new and exotic, such as the Grand Haven area. Either way, the surviving cards provide a tantalizing glimpse into our past.

Postcards as we know them today were a long time developing. It took over a century just for the spelling to evolve from postal card to post card to postcard, the term and spelling that is in general use today. One of the early, formidable barriers to its development was the Post Office regulation that required an envelope for all correspondence. And then there were early detractors who thought it improper to mail a message on cards that anyone, especially the servants, could read!

The direct ancestors of the postcard were envelopes printed with comic figures, valentines, music, and patriotic images issued during the Civil War. The first postal-type card similar to that used today was copyrighted in 1861. Post Office officials eventually recognized its potential popularity and, on May 13, 1873, issued America’s first penny postal card. The simple penny postal was sold at Post Offices throughout the country for the next 70 years.

Early entrepreneurs also saw the worth of post cards and began mailing what became known as exposition cards, which were used for advertising and not intended to be souvenirs. The earliest known exposition card appeared in 1873 and showed the InterState Industrial Exposition in Chicago.

The first cards published as souvenirs were placed on sale in 1893 at the Columbia Exposition in Chicago. However, the postage was two cents, whereas the government-printed post cards remained at one cent. Public pressure eventually ended this Post Office monopoly. By an Act of Congress on May 19, 1898, publishers of printed mailing cards, or postcards, were granted permission to sell cards to the general public that could be mailed for one cent, the same as the Post Office card. But, as with the government postals, writing was still on the front, or picture side, of the card with the address on the opposite side.

A major breakthrough came in 1907 when the divided back card was introduced, which allowed one side to be used exclusively for the picture while the other side provided spaces for both message and address. This revolutionary innovation ushered in the Golden Age of postcards.

Deltiology, the collecting of postcards, is the third largest collectable hobby in the world, surpassed only by coin and stamp collecting. The evolution of the postcard can be divided into seven overlapping eras: Pioneer,1870–1898; Private Mailing Card, 1898–1901; Undivided Back, 1901–1907; Divided Back, 1907–1915; Early Modern or White Border, 1916–1930; Linen, 1930–1945; and Photochrome, 1939–present. By referring to these eras, collectors can approximately date a card even without a postmark. Part of the postcards’ appeal was that publishers took the liberty of improving scenes to make them perfect. Although all the cards in this book are black and white, most of them originally were colorized for distribution. Throughout most of the 20th century, the astonishing detail and clarity of real photo postcards made them consistently popular and always favored by collectors. As the name suggests, real photo cards were reproduced by photographic means rather than a rapid printing process. Other variations were the double panel fold-out postcard, which offered a panoramic wide angle view, and the split view, which offered more than one scene on a standard-sized card.

Some postcards, like this one, consisted of whimsical cartoon-like characters in humorous situations. Although the card features Grand Haven, the name of any city could have been printed in the box. The card is undated.

Occasionally publishers printed postcards in packets, using an accordion-like hinge that allowed as many as a dozen views to be mailed as a unit. The earliest known packet from the Grand Haven area was postmarked 1907 and contained 12 miniature views of local landmarks, each measuring two by three inches.

In this collection the reader will see samples of all types of cards, and we hope each will convey at least a taste of what life was like in the Grand Haven area in those bygone days.

One

SAFE HARBOR

Nat Brown, a Grand Haven photographer, copyrighted this postcard in 1908. As with many picture postcards, the scene was enhanced to make it more appealing. Even an extra track for the Interurban was added! The outward bound ship is the steamer Nyack and the incoming vessel appears to be one of the Grand Trunk ferry boats. There is a third, unidentified ship at the far end of the south pier.

The view in this unmailed postcard presents a more realistic scene than the previous one, including the rustic farm house. The single Interurban track can be seen between the sheds in the foreground and the revetment. The Life Saving Service Station across the channel is somewhat hidden by the shadows. It is rare to see small recreational boats in the channel in these early years.

The Grand Trunk Railroad ferried entire freight trains between Grand Haven and Milwaukee. After reaching the other side of Lake Michigan, the cars could continue their journey east or west. The sun is just catching one end of a boxcar in the ship’s large hold, as shown in this card postmarked 1910. The south pier was extended to its present length in 1893, but the beacon on the bluff remained the primary