Saturday, October 09, 2010

All Aboard!

Tooling around the web tonight on a completely different errand, I suddenly found myself fascinated by vintage postcards. And what I found particularly interesting was the focus upon railroad stations. It seems that images of railway stations were all the rage. And why not? At the time, railroads represented the future. They took impossible distances down to size. Trips we take for granted, commutes to work, trips to shop, the movies, vacations with our families were completely off the radar of most Americans back then. And trains were like rocket ships that could transport you to places that your grandparents never imagined being able to go to.

So is it a stretch if I equate Train Stations with churches? The biggest ones were like cathedrals without the Bishop's seat! And the religion?--modernity. The postcard was the relic that not only served the same purpose of awe and remembrance, but like all things modern, was mass produced by processes and technologies that the purchaser's grandparents could have hardly comprehended either.

Here for your pleasure are 8 to appreciate!

Jacksonville, Florida

Las Vegas, Nevada

Mount Vernon, Ohio

Somerset, Kentucky

Salina, Kansas

Lawton, Oklahoma

Pocatello, Idaho

Westfield, Massachusetts

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