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Historical Topics Available
The National Colony Promotional material that brought settlers to Worthington
After over 70 years of use and teaching several generations of family members Central Elementary comes to an end
Tens of thousands of individuals, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, cousins and neighbors worked here during the years of operation of the various enterprises that existed on this property, lastly as Campbells Soup
These historic images, from historic photos and postcards, are organized in Albums, each on a topic, with each Album containing a number of photos.
I am making them available to on Internet you rather than have them hidden on my PC hard disk. I have tried to arrange the photos in each Album in date sequence, where I could. Also, I have added some narrative descriptive text making note of some feature of that photo that you might otherwise miss, or facts associated with the subject that might be of interest to you.
These photos have been made available to me by a wide range of sources.
I would appreciate your help in dating these photos and learning of details of historic interest that they show.
Presently, I am using the Internet facility of webshots.com to store, organize and display these photos.
Some of the photos are very small and some of them
are very large
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Historic Downtown Worthington Click on a photo or link to see more photos in that area There are many
photos photos available to be viewed and downloaded to your PC. |
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Nobles County Court House |
Ninth Street & Second Avenue Area |
Ninth Street & Third Avenue Area |
Ninth Street & Fourth Avenue Area |
Tenth Street & Second Avenue area |
Tenth Street & Fourth Avenue area |
Tenth Street & Third Avenue area |
Tenth Street & Fifth Avenue Area |
Eleventh Street & Third Avenue Area |
Schools |
Hospitals, Clinic & Sanitorium |
Motels & Tourist Cabins |
Railroads & Trains |
Churches |
1903 Tenth Street between 3rd & 4th |
1940's Looking NW from Court House |
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Miscellaneous Worthington Click on a photo or link to see more photos in that area |
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1894 View looking SW from Court House |
1903 Winter view of Lake from Court House |
Miscellaneous Historical Information
| Known Dates for Selected Early Community Changes | |
|---|---|
| 1872/4/29 | First Passenger train to Worthington P161 |
| 1872 | First Public School - opened with rented space P187 & 188 |
| 1872/6 | First Nobles County Court House - wooden building P98 |
| 1879/10/10 | First Nobles County Fair P195 |
| 1982/10/7 | Burlington RR into Worthington completed ( Rock Island) P108 |
| 1889/10/25 | Castle School building built P109 |
| 1891 | Worthington water works system completed P191 |
| 1899 | Burlington RR to Wilmont built P119 |
| 1905 | Worthington Bath House Association formed P197 |
| 1906 | Worthington Hospital - Manson building established P197 |
| Source: AP Rose "Illustrated History of Nobles County" | |
Important Local Photo/Facility Dates
| Built | Gone | Facility of Feature |
| 1899 | ? | Burlington (Rock Island) Track built along lake shore |
| 1909 | ? | Central part of Jr-Sr High School on 7th Ave between 13th & 14th Street |
| 1911 | - | Thompson Hotel at 10th St & 3rd Ave |
| 1919 | 2007 | Tuberculosus Sanitarium ( later became Cripple Children's School & other uses) |
| 1931 | - | Federal Post Office at 11th St & 3rd Ave |
| 1932 | - | Central Elementary core buildings built ( 1948 north wing & Gym added) |
| 1940 | - | Bandshell at Chautauqua park |
| 1941 | - | Dam at West Okabena overflow |
| 1948 | - | Cement Elevator at Diagonal & 10th St ( next to a wooden one built earlier) |
| 1948 | - | Power plant water exchange on shore of Lake Okabena |
| 1954 | - | Road around lake moved from lake shore north to be an extension of 10th St crossing Whiskey Ditch |
| 1954 | - | West Elementary built |
| 1954 | - | Clary Street bridge across Whiskey Ditch to Park Avenue |
| 1954 | 1985 | The National 5¢, 10¢ & $1 Store replaced Gambles store in Hotel Thompson |
| ? | 2007 | Water Tower - Centennial Park |
| ? | 1962 | Habicht Dept Store consumed by fire |
Postcard Photo Issues
LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO MADE POSTCARDS:
E.F. Buchan opened his studio on Third Avenue opposite the courthouse in
1880 (two years before the Burlington railroad arrived). He continued
in business 54 years, until 1934, when Harry Rickers bought the studio.
Harry Blume - he was doing work in the 19-teens - he arrived on the scene 25 or
30 years after Buchan
opened his studio. Blume still had his studio in a two-story,
pioneer building on 10th Street,
next to the Firestone property until about 1950. The building burned - oh, 1970?
Buchan and Blume both did some great things. Buchan took pictures here
and there about town, although not as many as Blume. Buchan seems to have
been mostly concerned with portraits and family photos. Harry Blume
was often out and about through the town and he did many postcards.
(This insight contributed by Ray Crippen)
LIMITATIONS OF POSTCARD DATES: There are USPS cancellation dates on some of these postcards. But, these are not the dates of the photos. The photos would have been taken earlier, usually at least a year before.
Postcards were sold to tourists on racks in restaurants, variety stores and other places. These racks were kept filled on a routine time schedule by a firm who specialized in this. For a while we had local photographers doing this. Then it became regionalized.
Postcards were not redone each year. Postcards were kept on sale on these racks as long as they kept selling. So, a good selling image on a postcard may keep that postcard on the racks, selling and in use a while after the object on the postcard no longer is there, or has changed in the way it looks. Furthermore, people may have purchased a postcard, but put it in a drawer and sent it by USPS many years later. Therefore, while we may have an approximation of a time period from the USPS cancellation date, it is not a definitive source of when that specific photo was taken.
