.

Historical Topics Available

Special Reports

Special Report: over 700 photos that you can view & download

After over 70 years of use and teaching several generations of family members Central Elementary comes to an end

Special Report:  Photos that you can view & download

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

Historic photos of Worthington

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
 

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.
Nobles County Court House

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Ninth Street & Second Avenue Area

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Ninth Street & Third Avenue Area

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Ninth Street & Fourth Avenue Area

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Tenth Street & Second Avenue area

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Tenth Street & Fourth Avenue area

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Tenth Street & Third Avenue area

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Tenth Street & Fifth Avenue Area

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Eleventh Street & Third Avenue Area

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Schools

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Hospitals, Clinic & Sanitorium

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Motels & Tourist Cabins

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Railroads & Trains

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Churches

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1903 Tenth Street between 3rd & 4th

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1940's Looking NW from Court House

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Miscellaneous Worthington
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1894 View looking SW  from Court House

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1903 Winter view of Lake from Court House

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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

These local facilities may appear on a photo or postcard you have. Knowing when these existed ( dates) will help you determine the era of the photo
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.

 


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