MOUNT VERNON — Over the last few years, we’ve examined a number of images of South Main Street as it leaves public square in downtown Mount Vernon.
Despite the number of those images that I’ve perused, this postcard image shows something none of the others do: an arch.
While lit-up arches over streets in Mansfield (North Main Street) and Columbus (the Short North neighborhood on High Street) were featured in hundreds of postcard images over the years, Mount Vernon’s arches on the square are quite rare. The fact that they are wired with electric lightbulbs suggests that this isn’t an ancient image.
The automobiles help, too. Earlier, dated images with more horses from 1907 and 1909 lack the arch, but the style of cars suggests a date early in the World War One period, around 1914 or 1915.
But the arches are gone by images taken late in the war. So, what happened?
I would guess that the war itself was the key. As munitions factories began cranking up, even before the US entered the world-entangling conflict, there was a massive need for metal that could be melted down and recast as weapons.
Mount Vernon was among the towns that contributed to this metal recycling goal. One of the things done here was to rip up most of the town’s trolley lines, which were being quickly usurped by automobiles. Those trolley rails were prime steel that could be melted down.
I would guess it was decided that the arches on the square, though pretty, and only a few years old, were also fair game to be recycled for the war effort — especially if they were as troublesome a maintenance issue as such arches have proven elsewhere.
The photo is also fascinating for the sheer number of extensive awnings shown. In the days before air-conditioning, awnings (many of them hand-cranked into position at the beginning and end of the day) blocked sunlight from heating up stores through their front windows.
Years later, their necessity was less, and today they are hardly seen at all.
One can also note on the right side of South Main the Rockwell Company, real estate agents who specialized in farm properties. They were the ones who printed up the old post card we featured here just a few weeks ago.
