Postcards preserve Washington’s past
Published 8:25 pm Friday, May 12, 2017
- FIRST HOSPITAL: Fowle Memorial Hospital, the city's first hospital, was built in the early 1900s. The hospital occupied land on the corner of Market and Fifth streets where the fire station now stands.
Long before practically everyone had a cell phone camera, postcards were a favorite way to capture and share images in big cities and small towns across America. The “Original” Washington was certainly no exception. Postcards still in existence today preserve views of Washington long since lost to development and the forces of nature.
The George H. & Laura E. Brown Library is a repository rich in materials pertinent to the history of Washington and Beaufort County in general. Postcards include those with views of the city’s first hospital and an early school, images of the Washington waterfront and scenes from the Pamlico River.
More of these antique, collectible postcards will be shared in future editions of Pamlico Life in the Washington Daily News.
WATERFRONT: Washington’s waterfront is shown on this postcard from 1911. Note the Fowle warehouse, still standing in 2017, in the background.
EARLY SCHOOL: The “Washington Graded School Building” is depicted on this card, which bears a December 1909 postcard.
BRIDGE TO WASHINGTON: Long before a modern cement and steel bridge was completed across the Pamlico River, a more humble structure offered travelers passage between Washington and Chocowinity.
SHIPPING: An early 20th-century postcard offers a view of the Washington waterfront when it was bustling as a shipping port.
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