View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis.

Mailed 9 Oct. 1911 from Orfordville. to Mr. Burr Bagley, Evansville.

The picture

A sailboat with a large white sail and two people aboard crosses a broad stretch of river below a high wooded hill at left. At right a woman in a long red-orange dress and a small girl in a white patterned dress stand on the end of a wooden dock. The bow of a rowboat holding a jar or can fills the bottom center; a small launch is far off on the water.

• Printed caption: View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis.
• Printing: colored halftone · color
• Condition: a faint diagonal crease line at lower left; slight edge wear; a thin white strip along the right edge of the scan

The back

• Layout: divided back (message at left, address at right)
• Printed: POST CARD · This side for address · Pub. by F. M. Hamilton, Janesville, Wis.
• Stamp: 1c, green, profile bust in an oval, facing left (no name on the stamp)
• Postmark: […]ORDVILL[E] / OC[T] / 9 / 1911 / 10AM / WIS (four-bar or duplex circular datestamp (handstamp))
• Condition: a large brown water stain across the lower half and the message side; 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 (front of the card, sky at upper right, between the caption and the woman's head, written diagonal, rising to the right):

how ab[?]out[?] it ?

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

Hello Burr! Thought I'd write
a card. Am at home now
and am feeling fine. It
sure seems good to be out
again after a whole year.
Would like to have you
drive down. Can't you
and Jessie plan to come.
Pretty lonely. how's H.S.?
[…]ld like to hear from you. [illegible]

Address:

Mr. Burr Bagley.
Evansville,
Wis.

Reading version

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

Hello Burr! Thought I'd write a card. Am at home now and am feeling fine. It sure seems good to be out again after a whole year. Would like to have you drive down. Can't you and Jessie plan to come. Pretty lonely. How's[?] H.S.? […]ld like to hear from you. [illegible]

Who

• Burr Bagley — recipient, Evansville, Wis.
• Jessie — named in the message; invited to come with Burr

When

How	Date	Basis
filename	1911-10-09	the date in the scan's file name
postmark	1911-10-09	postmark, as read: the day the card was mailed, not the day the picture was made
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	crux (the town, month still in question)	claude, gemini, gpt
address	majority	claude, gemini, gpt
message	majority	claude, gemini, gpt
signature	in message	gemini

Uncertain readings:

• front, pencil: how about it ? — faint pencil on the sky

Reader's note: The writer is home again after 'a whole year' away and wants Burr to drive down. Mailed at a small town whose name ends in -ORDVILLE, not at Beloit. No signature is visible; the last line runs off the edge.

Other copies of this view

Scans of the same printed picture that are not cards of this collection (matched by picture fingerprint):

• 1910 View Big Hill & Rock River Near Beloit Wisconsin WI Postcard.png — source, front
• postcard-view-big-hill-and-rock-river-near-beloit (postcard-view-big-hill-and-rock-river-near-beloit.png) — vault image, front

Scans: 1911-10-09 - View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis. - 01.png and 1911-10-09 - View Big Hill and Rock River, Near Beloit, Wis. - 02.png (sha256 edd5ea6e48ec…, 79ba714b35a8…). Media: front — the scanner's white edge trimmed: kept pixels [0, 0, 1072, 696]; back — the scanner's white edge trimmed: kept pixels [0, 0, 1075, 694]