The Detritus of Time Travel

Concluding this latest series of photographic glimpses into local history are a selection of photographs found in the Miami University digital collections (found here) that did not fit easily into the two previous postings.  Most of the photographs in this three-post series are from the Frank Snyder Collection, taken by Frank Snyder himself (he of Snyder Camera Shop fame).  The images below struck me as being interesting and worthy of sharing here in these digital pages.

Old (and spooky) Fisher Hall, photographed here in 1959, demolished decades ago to make way for the Marcum Hotel & Conference Center.  What an attractive setting; mature shade trees, a broad expanse of sun-dappled lawn.  It's really unfortunate that in recent years the University has seen fit to jam up every inch of our formerly pretty campus with hulking, green space-obliterating modern academic and dormitory buildings.

To think that in such a place.....

Indeed.

Here is an immediately recognizable view - for Townies of a certain vintage - of the uptown business district in Oxford.  This image is from 1957.  It very well could have been from the 1987..... excluding the examples of era-specific Detroit Iron lining High Street.  Long gone, of course, is the water tower and the Miami Western movie theater.  In case you cannot make out the marquee, showing at the Miami Western that day was Peyton Place.

Speaking of vintage cars, if you recall seeing in the previous post a Miami Homecoming photograph of a procession of convertibles parading down High Street on a rainy day, longtime subscriber and British car enthusiast Kuertz volunteered this information;

Front to back

1.       MG TF Mark II (rare)

2.       '54-'55 'Vette (not saying '53 b/c they only made 300)

3.       MGA

4.       MGA (or Austin Healey 100 but really doubt it)

5.       MG TD

6.       The greatest car of the '50s, a Triumph TR3 small mouth (or TR2, can’t tell)!!!

7.       MG TC

Proving that spoiled Miami kids have loved their sports cars since Herr Daimler first burned a hydrocarbon.  I wonder how many Stutz Bearcats have been through O-Town?

There is a white ’58 olds 88 to the right.

Drifting back further in time, here is another scene from an uptown Oxford street fair (1913);

The sidewalk clock reads 3:44.  Looks like a brisk, damp afternoon.  Late spring?  Early autumn?  "The Chocolate Shop" is one of those old-time Oxford business names that I recognize only from local history books and photographs. 

Evidently, from the variety of similar photos in the M.U. archive, the annual Freshman-Sophomore class tug-of-war was an eagerly anticipated event.  Here is what it looked like in the moments leading up to the 1914 iteration;

And again in 1922;

For perspective, in the 1914 photo the uptown parks can be seen at the upper right of the image.  One might observe the clash of transportation eras on display in the 1914 photo; horse-drawn carriages near the merry-go-round and at right along the High Street curb with a horseless carriage parked along the curb at left.

By the time the 1922 photograph was taken, all horse-drawn conveyances seem to have completely disappeared.  The large two-story building standing at the corner of Main St and West Park Place jumps out, to my eyes, as an unfamiliar edifice.  From my earliest memories that corner was a gas station.  Beyond that building and looking further northward as Main St slopes downhill I am struck by the dense forest of trees along the west side of Main St.  And is that a fountain that can be seen at the edge of the east park?  Whatever it might have been, it can also be observed in the photos from the recent Long Range Reconnaissance; 1918 post.

The 1915 street fair (above) featured a procession of decorated automobiles.  Fans of old agricultural implements will appreciate the iron-wheeled tractor at left.  Below, a look at was - in 1915 - the Adams Drug Store;

In the previous posting this same storefront was occupied by Byrne's Pharmacy in the 1950s, Creative Crafts in the latter decades of the 20th century.  That long wooden awning is not something familiar to modern eyes.  Oxford's sidewalk and curbing game was strong in 1915!

While on the subject of long-defunct businesses in buildings still standing 100+ years later;

This advertisement for the Bee Hive Grocery published in a 1914 calendar shows a storefront where today a visitor to Oxford will enjoy a Graeter's ice cream.

I found only one photograph taken from inside the old Oxford High School;

This was an exhibit of the items produced by the manual arts class in 1917.  Oxford High School stood at the corner of College Avenue and Spring Street, facing Spring St.  Most of you reading this will known that to be the area where Stewart High School (1929) and later - and more gloriously - Stewart Junior High School proudly stood as the home of the Tigers.  The same corner today is occupied by the Stewart Square mixed-use development.  

Armistice Day, 1918, spurred the citizens of Oxford to conduct a tremendous parade along High Street.  Some few photographs from this big day were posted here recently, here yet are a few more;

I need some assistance in identifying on which street the photograph below was taken;

Clearly the street grade drops away in the background.  Is it East High Street, near the intersection with Campus Avenue?  College Avenue, near the intersection with High Street?  College Avenue, near the intersection with Church Street?  On High Street, looking southward down Main St?  There are many more distinct possibilities.  I cannot place this image.

At any rate, the photograph of the truck and truck driver is identified in the Miami University collection as being Lewis Roll, driving T.C. Lloyd's truck, 1918.  I also do not recognize the names or Lewis Roll or T.C. Lloyd.  I recall Roll's jewelry store uptown, in the 1970s and 1980s.  Having ended last year my subscription to Ancestry.com I cannot conduct from my desktop a local genealogy search.

Roll the credits!