Main Street, Salisbury, North Carolina, circa 1910

About this postcard

Looking down a wide, unpaved Main Street lined with two- and three-story brick and frame commercial blocks, their storefronts shaded by awnings; horse-drawn buggies, wagons and teams stand along the curbs while pedestrians walk the sidewalks, and tall multi-crossarm telephone and trolley poles march down both sides of the street. Salisbury, the seat of Rowan County in the North Carolina Piedmont, was laid out in 1753 and grew as a market and railroad town; this view captures its business district in the early automobile era, when livery stables and wagons still dominated the street.