Main Street looking north, Dayton, Ohio, 1907

About this postcard

Looking north up Main Street in Dayton, Ohio, with double streetcar tracks and trolley wires running down the center of the wide roadway. Awnings shade the shop fronts, and pedestrians, buggies, and wagons work the curbs. On the right a red-brick church tower with pinnacles rises above the rooflines, and farther up the street stands a tall commercial block carrying a painted sign for The Dayton Savings & Trust Co. Dayton in 1907 was a manufacturing city of growing reputation, home to the Wright brothers' cycle shop and a cluster of carriage, bicycle, and early automobile makers. Main Street was its commercial spine, and the trolley lines down the middle carried shoppers and workers between the river wards and the outskirts. The sender's note is a short line from "Highlands," written two days before the Dayton postmark.