Altnacraig
a spectacular High Ridge mansion that burned down..
The Bailey Inn
well-known tourist stop in
first quarter of the 20th Century.
Branchville
looking across the Norwalk River.
Cannonball
House
now the Keeler
Tavern Museum, in a wonderfully colored view.
Cass
Gilbert Fountain, designed
and donated by a leading American architect who lived
in the Cannonball House (above).
East Ridge
sweeping view east of Main Street.
The Elms Inn
then called Elm Shade Cottages.
Firehouse
on
Catoonah Street, shortly after it was built in
1908, with fire bell tower.
First National Bank
at Main and Governor Streets, showing a couple of
chauffeurs chatting with a man in a straw hat.
Graeloe
the
estate that's today Ballard Park and was once the
home of a Revolutionary hero.
Governor Street
with East Ridge in background, showing a
family about 1908.
Grovelawn
home of Gov. Phineas Lounsbury, is
now the Community Center. (Note: Image is big, 204kb.)
Hermit of
Ridgefield
showing George
Washington Gilbert and the saltbox that crumbled
around him.
Holy Ghost Novitiate
later acquired by the town, now housing for elderly.
Lynch
Estate
high up on West Mountain, and a view therefrom
Main Street
looking south from Ridgefield Pharmacy around 1910.
Main Street
looking north from south end, with two side-saddled women ca. 1908 view.
Main Street
looking north from opposite Rockwell Road, showing
homes and lawns and a glimpse of the Corner Store.
Main Street
including Walker's Happy Shop and S.S. Denton
building, late 1920s.
Methodist Church
a
beautiful building that stood in the heart of the
village and was, alas, razed in the name of
"progress."
Northern Main
Street
showing the large
old maples around 1907.
Outpost Farm
The home of Col. Louis D. Conley was the center of what's now the
'Bennett's Pond' property.
Outpost Inn
on the site of Fox Hill condos,
was built for a bride, and was torn down by a man who went to
prison.
Port of Missing Men
on Titicus Mountain, once a resort for wealthy sportsmen and now the
Eight Lakes neighborhood..
Railroad
station
on Prospect Street,
now part of Ridgefield Supply.
Ridgefield
Inn
in its hayday
around 1910. It also served as
Ridgefield School for Boys (below).
Ridgefield
School for Boys (and Ridgefield Inn)
south end of Main Street
Ridgefield
School
on a 115-acre
campus off North Salem Road (1911-38).
St. Mary's
Church, Rectory
around 1910.
St. Stephen's complex
showing
the old church later razed, and the rectory, later
moved.
Smith Tavern
a 19th Century watering hole on the
site of the present library.
Stebbins
House
a hospital during
the Battle of Ridgefield in 1777.
Sunset
Hall
the estate once eyed as headquarters of the United Nations.
Town Hall
around 1905, showing women in Victorian garb, a
horse and carriage, and the old firehouse.
Upagenstit
West Lane estate of Frederic E. Lewis, later home of an international revolutionary and
bridge player, then a college for women, finally alleged Communist hangout.
West Lane
looking eastward from around Parley Lane.
West Lane
looking westward from around Parley Lane.
West Lane
Schoolhouse
where Peter
Parley got his early education.
The Wiggins place
home of the man who made Chase the richest bank in the world.
Windover
West Lane estate of Life Magazine
founder and novelist John Ames Mitchell. |
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Main Street looking south toward town
hall (in distance) about 1915
Early 20th Century postcard views of Ridgefield, Connecticut, from a collection that includes more than 500
postcard pictures of the
town in the first half of the century.
Because Ridgefield was considered a "resort
town" early in the 20th Century, many postcards views of Main
Street, village homes and mansions, churches, landmarks, and scenic
landscapes were published between 1900 and 1940.
Before World War I, many of the cards were printed in
Germany on the finest color presses then available. The war forced
American postcard publishers to turn to an old-fashioned method, and
many views from 1916 to 1940 were literally hand-colored.
Most of the cards here were commissioned and sold by
either H.P. Bissell's Drug Store, still in operation today more than a
century after it was founded, or by George A. Mignerey, operator of the
other pharmacy on Main Street.
Jack Sanders, who compiled these pages, is always interested in acquiring old Ridgefield postcards. He can also produce enlarged, full-color copies, suitable for framing, of
hundreds of cards, such as the ones shown here. He is also available to
do a digital slide show on big screens of more than 100 old postcard
views of Ridgefield. (Digital projector must be provided!) For more
information, please e-mail him at jackfsanders[at]yahoo.com.
More
images are posted periodically.
Last added to Friday, January 28, 2005.
Entire contents
copyright © 2005 by Jack
Sanders and Hersam Acorn Newspapers. Text may not be reproduced
without the permission of the author.
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