East Grand Ave., Beloit, Wis.

Mailed 24 July 1908 from Beloit. From EAB to Miss Opal Barnes, Schaller.

The picture

A crowded street intersection: a large multi-story building with two tiers of covered balconies at left, awnings over shopfronts, a streetcar heading toward the viewer on curving tracks, horse-drawn buggies at left, and a dense crowd of people, many in white, filling the street. A girl in a pink top and blue skirt crosses the foreground. A pointed-roof tower and a red-roofed square tower rise in the distance beyond trees.

• Printed caption: EAST GRAND AVE., BELOIT, WIS.
• Publisher: E. C. KROPP CO., PUB., MILWAUKEE, NO. 4304
• Number: 4304
• Printing: colored halftone · color
• Lettering in the picture: streetcar front panel numbers, illegible (three digits either side of a central '1'[?])
• Postmark ink on the picture: a faint curved arc of postmark ink in the sky at upper center, left of the distant tower (offset from another card's circular datestamp)
• Condition: corner wear; the scan shows horizontal color banding across the whole image (scanner artifact or print screen); the imprint at lower right is faded, its first letters partly lost

The back

• Layout: divided back (message at left, address at right)
• Printed: THIS SPACE IS RESERVED FOR MESSAGE. · Post Card · The space above is reserved for Postmark · THIS SPACE FOR ADDRESS ONLY.
• Stamp: 1c, green, Franklin
• Postmark: BELOIT / JUL24 / 11-AM / 9 08 / WIS. (machine cancel with flag killer)
• Condition: a dark round ink blot over the end of message line 3; brown stains over 'back' and over 'so' in the message; general toning

Exact copy

Line for line as written. [?] follows an uncertain word; [illegible] marks one that cannot be read; ~~ ~~ is crossed out, ^ ^ written above the line, […] runs off the card.

Message (back of the card, left half, message side, written sideways, reading top to bottom (turn the card 90 degrees counterclockwise to read)):

Your card rec'd last
night. Thanks for remem
berance[?], as today is the
24th of July
you better have Almeda
come home or back to Bd[?]
hear she is not so[?] well,
Good by EAB

Address:

Miss Opal Barnes
Schaller
Iowa
R F D #2

Reading version

The message joined into sentences, the spelling lightly modernized only where it helps; uncertain words keep their marks.

Your card rec'd last night. Thanks for remembrance[?], as today is the 24th of July. You better have Almeda come home or back to Bd[?] hear she is not so[?] well. Good by, E.A.B.

Who

• Opal Barnes — recipient, Schaller, Iowa, R.F.D. #2
• EAB — sender (initials)
• Almeda — named in the message; someone the writer says is not well

When

How	Date	Basis
filename	1908-07-24	the date in the scan's file name
postmark	1908-07-24	postmark, as read: the day the card was mailed, not the day the picture was made
written	24th of July (in the message; no year written)	a date written by the sender
card-features	after 1907-03-01	divided back: allowed in the US from 1 Mar. 1907

The readings

Part	Status	Readers
caption	all agree	claude, gemini, gpt
postmark	all agree	claude, gemini, gpt
address	majority	claude, gemini, gpt
message	majority	claude, gemini, gpt
signature	in message	claude, gemini

Uncertain readings:

• message, line 3: berance (or brance) — the continuation of 'remem-'; the first letters are a looped stroke that could be 'be' or 'b'
• message, line 6, last word: Bd (or B. I (with 'I hear' running onto the next line), B'd) — a capital B followed by a short looped stroke with a tall stem at the line end
• message, line 7: so (or as) — the word is under a brown stain
• message, line 5: better — written over the descenders of 'of July' above it

Reader's note: The message is written sideways in the message half. The writer's 'today is the 24th of July' agrees with the JUL 24 postmark. The address is to Schaller, Iowa (on a rural free delivery route); the card was mailed at Beloit. The sender's initials EAB share a B with the recipient's surname Barnes, but the card does not say they are related.

Scans: 1908-07-24 - East Grand Ave., Beloit, Wis. - 01.png and 1908-07-24 - East Grand Ave., Beloit, Wis. - 02.png (sha256 82259448c613…, a4d992807526…). Media: front — the scan, byte for byte; back — the scan, byte for byte