The Slower Road

This rather large building was the Algonquin Hotel in Dayton, Ohio, c. 1904.

Parked in front of the hotel are two delivery vans and several bicycles. I can’t read the name on the first delivery van, but the other one is from Pearl Laundry (with a very fancy “L”). Two ladies and a young girl (trying to balance something on her head!) are crossing the street.

There’s a lot going on in this photo of Exchange Place (Providence, R.I.), c. 1910. There are pedestrians; cars, horse-drawn vehicles, and a streetcar traveling down both sides of the large square; cars, carriages, and delivery vehicles parked along the right-hand sidewalk; and a multitude of cars parked in the square itself. Then, in the foreground, are eight working vehicles and trailers of various sorts. It looks like these are being used to haul equipment and supplies for road work or construction, judging by the piles of rocks, etc.

Here, we’re on the Ohio River at Louisville, c. 1905. The river barge in this photo looks like it’s being unloaded, judging by the poultry wagon (far right) being driven down one of the ramps.

According to the caption, the large barrel-like objects (there are three of them on the dray hitched to a pair of horses) are hogsheads of tobacco.

And is it my imagination, or does it look like a calf is being loaded on the delivery van hitched to the single horse?

This photo doesn’t have any horses or carriages in it (or does it?*), but it’s interesting because it shows the rest of the Georgia Lee riverboat at the far left of the first photo.

*Is that a wagon, all packed up in a crate and being shipped somewhere, in the bow of the Georgia Lee?