Maplewood History: It’s In The Cards! – Part One

Postcards, that is.  Vintage postcards can provide a wonderful window to the past.  In the collection at the Maplewood Public Library, there are only a small number of the original cards. They are exceedingly rare.  Only a few have been found on eBay in the 20+ years that I’ve been doing this.

The now defunct Maplewood Renaissance Society made hard copies of several antique postcards for the 75th Anniversary of the founding of our town in 1983.  The library has these in their collection.  I have no idea where those originals are now.  In this post we’ll take a look at both.

It seems odd that the cards should be so rare because when these postcards were used, they were the equivalent of today’s text messages.  I imagine that most homes had no telephone.  Mail was delivered twice a day.  These postcards were the quickest, cheapest way to deliver brief messages.

I especially like the ones that have the postmarks or information of some sort on the backs.  I recently bought a couple that were on eBay.  I was made aware of them by reader Lew.  Thank you, Lew.  I will gift these to the Maplewood Public Library when they reopen in 2025.  They are currently in the middle of a big remodel.

I’ll start off the post with the cards in chronological order.  Have a look.

This church was destroyed by fire in 1954.  The Crossroads church now occupies this site on the NE corner of Oakview Terrace and Manchester.  The house just to the left was demolished for a parking lot.  In 1997, the house at the far left was moved to the middle of the 7400 block of Flora to replace a house that had burned.

The back of the previous postcard.

You’ve heard of Then-and-Now images.  These are Then-and-Then.  This is what the former site of the Maplewood Christian Church looked like in 2008.

If we stood in this spot today and took a photograph, Citizens Bank would be on the left.  The building farthest in the distance contained the Maplewood Bank and then later housed a Western Auto store.  It is gone, replaced by a parking lot that is directly across the street from the Maplewood Deli (formerly Foundation Grounds).  The building on the right is now the home of Vom Fass.

From memory, this card has a postmark from 1909 as well.  Since the library is closed, I’m unable to copy it and post it here.  This image I cleaned up a bit with Photoshop.  The description at the bottom used to read “7284 Manchester Ave., looking East, etc.”  I erased the 7284 because it was a stock number and not an address.

Looking east along the 7300 block of Manchester in 2013.

7286 is not an address, it’s a stock number.  The turreted home is missing today.  What follows is a page from my Maplewood History, Volume Two book where this image was featured.

This may be confusing if you don’t have the book.  It is from a chapter about the McGregor family.

The back of the previous postcard.  I love it when they have the postmark!

This is the Congregational Church at Sutton and Hazel in 2010.  It is across the street, Hazel, from the parking lot of our very popular restaurant, The Living Room.

This is an overlay showing Dr. Cape’s house which had once occupied the site.  His beautiful home was an early casualty of the age of the automobile.  It was removed to provide parking space for the first Bettendorf’s super market.

This image is of the first Baptist church building on the NW corner of Mariette and Marshall.

The back of the previous postcard.

By 2007, when this image was made, the second Baptist church building at Mariette and Marshall had been sold to the advertising firm, Moosylvania.  They did a beautiful job of adaptive reuse on this very attractive building.

In 1915, the address of the Maplewood branch of the Union Dairy was 7312 Manchester.  Today this is the site of Citizen’s Park.

The back of the previous postcard.

Citizens Park in 2010.  The first three original buildings on the south side of the 7300 block of Manchester have been demolished.  Today, Citizen’s Park is at that location.

Now renamed the Sutton Loop Park, the original name of this site was the Maplewood Loop.  The streetcar depot on the right no longer exists.  Nor does Dr. Cape’s house which can be seen behind it.

The back of the previous card.

The Sutton Loop Park in 2014.  If Maplewood had a town square, this would be it.

This one may be an envelope but it’s a favorite.  I love the way the artist reduced the size of everything on the street in order to make the building appear larger.  Well done!  Unfortunately, the building is long gone.  All of the original buildings along the north side of the 7300 block of Manchester were demolished.  A Schnucks supermarket is currently on the site.

This church once located on the NW corner of Flora and Sutton burned in 1914 and was replaced by a splendid brick building which still survives.

The back of the previous postcard.  Interesting that the card is postmarked 1916 and the church pictured had burned in 1914.

This beautiful brick church building was erected in 1915, the year after the original burned. It survives today.  I made this composite image for my blog in 2010.

Well, that certainly seems like enough content for Part One.  I must have been nuts to think I could fit all of our vintage postcards and accoutrements into one post.  There’s more.  Hopefully that will give you something to look forward to.

The weather is cooling a bit which is fine with me as long as it doesn’t over do it.  A friend said she likes the four seasons.  I like three of them.

Doug Houser    September 24, 2024