Campbell Avenue looking east, Roanoke, VA, 1907

About this postcard

A tinted view looks east along Campbell Avenue in Roanoke, Virginia, with trolley tracks curving down the center of the brick-paved roadway, a green streetcar approaching in the distance, and horse-drawn wagons and pedestrians along the sidewalks. Multi-story brick commercial blocks line both sides, hung with striped awnings and topped by utility poles crowded with telegraph and telephone crossarms; painted wall signs for furniture and a bakery are visible, and a delivery wagon carries a baker's name. Campbell Avenue was Roanoke's principal downtown business street in the early 1900s, when the city's growth was driven by the Norfolk and Western railway shops and yards. The scene catches the overlap of electric trolleys and horse traffic that marked those years, and the card was sent home in September 1907 by a sender signing himself "Papa" to a young woman in Amesbury, Massachusetts.