Postcard of the Day No. 116, Observation Car, San Antonio, Texas

The world’s first commercial electric railway opened in 1881 at Lichterfelde in Berlin.  This marked the end of the era of horse drawn street trolleys and over the following 25 years electrically powered streetcars dominated the American streetscene. When this image was recorded in the early 1900s, San Antonio was a city of 53,000 - today’s population is 1.5 million.  Streetcar routes were instrumental in shaping the growing city and land values soared along all new routes. Car number 211 is an Observation vehicle operating a special service - possibly a sightseeing excursion or a trip to a sporting event. Formalities of dress have been conscientiously followed, the staff being especially well turned out. Hats are universally worn in the full glare of a Texas sun. Other than the Steampunk splendour of the ornate vehicle, two details stand out. One being the casual hand that rests on the shoulder of a colleague, the other being the louche air of the couple on the extreme left who show no interest in boarding the vehicle. Streetcars came to be regarded as troublingly slow, a hindrance to other road users and haunted by ‘unsavoury’ passengers. Views that were constantly amplified by Big Oil in a nationwide campaign to switch to diesel powered buses. When streetcars were retired from the city streets in 1933, San Antonio was the largest city in the US to be dependent on buses, presumably cleansed of ‘unsavoury’ elements.

 

Postcard of the Night No. 4, Palestine, TX

There’s a city in the state of Texas called Palestine (pronounced Palesteen) and it’s the subject of today’s nocturnal treat. Spring Street as seen here is a broad thoroughfare with substantial buildings on the left (hotel, offices, stores) and what may well be a railroad station on the right. The clusters of globe lamps imply civic pride. A brief wander around downtown Palestine in search of this location, courtesy of Street View, was inconclusive – Spring Street (or West Spring Street to be precise) appears to be a wide boulevard with low-rise business premises (set back from the road) on the north side and an extensive Union Pacific rail freight yard on the south side. If the scene on the postcard still exists it must be in a different place. The image itself has a pleasing air of intrigue as if the citizens have taken refuge in their homes leaving the streets to a handful of vagrants. Early motor vehicles and horse drawn transport co-exist under the spectral moonlight. Many musical favourites have Texas connections and there must be a chance that the Bob Wills tour bus swept through these streets in the 1940s and disgorged its cargo of Texas Playboys at a local venue for a euphoric session of fiddle, steel and Western Swing. Meanwhile in another part of town the rhythmic pulse of the T-Bone Shuffle might be heard slinking forth from a juke joint where the great T-Bone Walker entertains an enraptured audience with a display of guitar picking with his armour plated teeth.