Main at Bell
8 November 1914: The intersection of Main at Bell was largely a residential section where workers and their managers walked or took the trolley for a nickel to offices in the business section further up Main Street. [See Main at Bell - Methodist Church for an earlier shot (15 October 1912) a little further south when the trees have not yet overgrown the view. The residences are more visible without the tree cover, so tenants are described there in greater detail. And for a view two streets farther to the north in this direction, see Main at Polk South posted in 1909 before the Methodist Church was built in 1912], 1. 1416 Main at corner: Capt. James Baker's mansion is further to the left out of sight; 2. 1408 Main: Mrs. Selma Stubenrauch's house;
3. 1320 Main: First Methodist Church, 1910; 4. 806 Main: Carter Building 17 stories, 1910; The Carter Building, the tallest structure in town at the time, can be seen as a ghostly tower in mid-frame in the distance. [See Carter Building, in which the Methodist Church can be seen in the distance as viewed from farther north on Main Street]; 5. 1411 Main: Emma E. Angell; 6. 1417 Main: Charles W. Grubbs. |
27 January 2014: Gone entirely are the middle-class homes that once lined Main Street here, although mid rise and high rise condos and apartments are beginning to bring an urban life to the area in recent years. The Carter Building remains, renovated as the J. W. Marriott Houston Downtown now dwarfed by much larger buildings on all sides, and no longer discernible amid the more recent high rise office buildings. 1. 1320 Main: First Methodist Church, 1910; 2. 1300 Main: Travis Tower (Conoco Building), 21 floors, 1955;
3. 916 Dallas: Courtyard Marriott (Humble Building renovated in 2003 into a hotel), 9 floors, 1921; 4. 1000 Main: Reliant Energy Plaza, 36 floors, 2003; 5. 914 Main: Commerce Tower, 24 floors, 1929 (converted into condos in 2003); 6. 712 Main: Gulf Building, 36 floors, 1929; 7. 811 Main: BG Group Place (Main Place, Block 93), 46 floors, 2011; 8. 1021 Main: One City Centre (First National Bank), 32 floors, 1961; 9. 1010 Lamar: Younan Square, 20 floors, 1980; 10. 1313 Main: GreenStreet Garage, 8 floors; 11. 1001 Fannin: First City Tower, 49 floors, 1981; |
|
Postmarked: 8 November 1914; Houston, Tex. R. P. O.
Stamp: 1c Green George Washington #405 To: Mrs. N. Everline Garnett Kansas Box 144 Message: Houston, Tex. 11-8-14 Dear Mother- We arrived here this am from Galveston - Leave at noon for San Antonio - Have sure had a week of pleasure but am getting tired of loafing - But will soon cut it out Now, George is with us. All well - Love to all Perry R. P. O., Railway Post Office postmarks were applied by postal officers stationed on trains or even streetcars. Passengers would hand their mail directly to agents, or to special mailboxes at stations for cancellation and posting. Often these postmarks were a bit smudged from hand cancels applied on unstable rail cars [Philatelists have specialized societies catering to collectors of these postmarks: see The R. P. O. Postmark Page.]
|
Lafayette Perry Everline was a 45 year old rail yard manager from Canadian, a town in the northeast corner of the Texas panhandle, writing his mother back in Kansas, Nancy Ricketts Everline. She was the widow of George M. Everline, former Anderson County, KS, County Clerk, Probate Judge, Mayor and Justice of the Peace, who had committed suicide ten years earlier over his overwhelming health concerns. Nancy’s father John Ricketts (1807-1888) came to Missouri before the Civil War where they settled in in the southwest part of the state at Lamar, Burton County south of Kansas City. In 1860 Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson was elected, but as a supporter of secession brought sympathetic troops of the Missouri State Guard to Boonville, MO where the pro-secessionist troops were defeated by the Union Army on 10 May 1861. Jackson and a small band of supporters fled to Burton County, where the troops commandeered the Ricketts farm and drove him from the property. He fled with his family to Peoria, then later to Garnett southwest of Kansas City. The Everline and Ricketts families were close, and Nancy’s father had been living with her when he died. He is buried in Garnett Cemetery.
Perry was apparently on a leisure trip with his family traveling through Texas, including Houston, Galveston, and San Antonio. His wife, Estella Mae Marshall Graves Everline, and his son, George Franklin Everline, about to turn 22, were along, but his postcard does not mention his daughter Estella Mae, who would have been about 16. The Everline family moved to Slaton near Lubbock about 1920 where Perry worked as a rail yard manager, and later to Huntington Park, Los Angeles County where Perry died in 1930 at the age of 62 and Estella in 1936 at the age of 68. |
