'S' Bridge and the Rock River, Beloit, Wis.

Mailed 4 July 1921 from Beloit. From Alla[?] 3d[?] Ed[?] to Mrs Louis Younger, Aurora.

The picture

Railroad tracks curve from the foreground onto a long timber trestle that bends across the river in an S. Factory buildings with a tall smokestack stand at left, a long multi-story building along the far shore at right, and a small wooded island in the river at center right.

• Printed caption: "S" BRIDGE AND THE ROCK RIVER, BELOIT, WIS.
• Printing: white border · color
• Lettering in the picture: two lines of white lettering on a red-brown structure at left, illegible
• Postmark ink on the picture: offset of machine-cancel wavy bars in the sky at upper center (from another card)
• Condition: corner wear; light soiling of the white border

The back

• Layout: divided back (message at left, address at right)
• Printed: THIS SPACE FOR WRITING MESSAGES · A-80649 · POST CARD · THIS SPACE FOR ADDRESS ONLY. · C. T. AMERICAN ART
• Stamp: 1c, green, profile bust in an oval, facing left (no name on the stamp)
• Postmark: BELOIT, WIS. / JUL 4 / 6 30 PM / 1921 (machine cancel with wavy-line killer)
• Condition: toning and soiling across the whole back; the pencil message is faint

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, message half, written sideways, reading top to bottom (turn the card 90 degrees counterclockwise to read)):

this is a
~~beutiful~~[?] beautiful
place - would enjoy
living here
Alla[?] 3d[?] Ed[?]

Address:

Mrs Louis Younger
302 South Lake St
Aurora Ill

Reading version

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

This is a beautiful place - would enjoy living here. Alla[?] 3d[?] Ed[?]

Who

• Mrs Louis Younger — recipient, 302 South Lake St, Aurora, Ill.
• Alla[?] — sender (with Ed[?])
• Ed[?] — sender (with Alla[?])

When

How	Date	Basis
filename	1921-07-04	the date in the scan's file name
postmark	1921-07-04	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
card-features	after 1915 to before 1930	white-border era (about 1915 to 1930)

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 2: beutiful (or biutiful) — a misspelled first attempt, struck through and rewritten
• signature: Alla 3d Ed (or Alla and Ed, Allie & Ed, Alla 3rd Ed) — the middle mark looks like a '3' followed by a 'd' and may be a cursive ampersand or 'and'; the last word is a capital E with a tall stroke, read as 'Ed'
• address, line 1: Louis (or Lomis) — the capital L is a looped stroke like a T or F

Reader's note: Mailed on the Fourth of July. A Curt Teich ('C. T. American Art') white-border card, plate A-80649.

Scans: 1921-07-04 - 'S' Bridge and the Rock River, Beloit, Wis. - 01.png and 1921-07-04 - 'S' Bridge and the Rock River, Beloit, Wis. - 02.png (sha256 a4783c88ef7d…, a5a5dcb19122…). Media: front — the scan, byte for byte; back — the scan, byte for byte