Antique & Vintage Postcards

A wide-angle linen view sweeps down the center stripe of Huron Avenue in Port Huron, Michigan, with the bold red Montgomery Ward signage anchoring the left and J.C. Penney holding down the right — a retail Main Street frozen in Depression-to-WWII-era prosperity, when these national chain stores were the engines of American downtown commerce. The exaggerated perspective and vivid Curteich coloring give the empty boulevard an almost cinematic grandeur, the kind of civic pride image that city boosters mailed by the hundreds to friends and relatives across the Midwest. Unused and crisp, it is a fine document of a vanished streetscape.