This card is a real-photo view, identified in the caption line as "Bregstone P.T.V. No. 1." The card was postmarked from Salem on July 18, 1933, but the series of cards it belongs to were published in the 1920s, and this photograph of cars and buildings on the town square was made in the summer of 1923. The Bregstone series I know of several Salem cards in this series: P.T.V. 1 -- East Side of the Square, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 2 (?) -- John Hay Birthplace, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 3 -- Washington County Court House, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 4 -- High School, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 6 -- Public Library, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 7 -- Bank of Salem Building, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 8 -- Cabinet Factory, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 9 -- M. E. Church, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 10 -- Baptist Church, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 11 -- Christian Church, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 12 -- Presbyterian Church, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 13 -- South Side of the Square, Salem, Ind. P.T.V. 14 -- The Knobs on State Road North of Salem Ind. P.T.V. 16 -- The Knobs on State Road North of Salem The views of the Baptist and Christian churches numbered 10 and 11 are included in the Stevens Museum exhibit on Salem's houses of worship. The boldface names are links to cards in this collection. Lightface indicates cards I don't have yet. Missing entries are cards I don't know the subject of. This card provides more information than most to help date the photograph. Because it's a real-photo view, a photographic print, it holds much finer detail than cards printed from engraved plates. At high magnification the license plates on the last four cars on the right-hand side are clearly legible: The plates all say "IND 23" down their right sides. So judging from the foliage on the trees the photograph was taken in the summer of 1923. (In the Bregstone South Side of the Square view only one license plate can be read. It's a lighter color than these, and the date appears to be 1925.) Some other interesting things are visible as well. As evidence that things in Salem change slowly if at all, compare this view to Charles McClintock's version of the same view taken a decade or so later. The whitewashed trees in front of McClintock's Drug Store in this view will disappear sometime in the coming years and the storefront will acquire a large sign that isn't in this picture. At the far end of the square, obscured by the trees in the middle of the view, the State Bank of Salem (shown on the left in the Sinclair Residence Flat card of about 1908 or so) has lost its awning over the sidewalk, but the Odd Fellows Building still has the same canopy with a transom row of windows it had in the 1908 view of the Southeast corner of the square. One other thing shows up under magnification: the circus is coming to town. Three posters in McClintock's windows proclaim a visit to Salem by the Gentry Bros. Shows and James Patterson's Circus. Unfortunately the row of parked cars hides the dates. If the performance dates had been visible we could have gotten an even closer fix on the date of the photograph. The card is written in a difficult hand. It is addressed to Dee B___, RR, Rochester, Ind. and the message may read, "Salem Tues. morn. Hot & dry and cows are hard to buy down here. Clyde." (10/10/01) Home | The 1920s | Next card