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garylk50 · ‎05-31-2014

You ever noticed on some old postcard you see just a name and town .

No house number or street name.

Did everyone know everyone .

Or did they go to the postoffice for there mail.

davidgill5018 · ‎06-02-2014

Yes, I have a postcard dated 1909 sent to my grandfather by one of his sisters that is just his NAME and the TOWN. The town was a small town in Ohio. I just checked the historical population, and it was about 2,500 at that date. I suspect most did at least know of every family in town. More importantly the post office sorting mail for this small town every day had no trouble delivering mail addressed this way.

Many towns in Europe developed a numbering system surprisingly late...and this may have been true in the US as well. One example, though it is not very telling because it is such a unique place, is the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California with a population of less than 4,000 still has no house numbering system.

What is written on postcards can be interesting, though usually they are incredibly banal and pedestrian. And penmanship was universally awful. I'm sure a few vintage postcards addressed to or from famous personalities or know historical people have been found.

The only things I have found with interesting messages etc:

1. Postcard from CLEVELAND c1905 that mentions the election of that city's famous progress mayor Tom L. Johnson.

2. I collect postcards of architecture and found a PC written by the semi-famous architect who design that building...sort of interesting and surprising. (archt is William S Hebbard of San Diego.)

garylk50 · ‎06-02-2014

Thank you for your reply.

Yes I was very curious of that.

I collect postcard of Galveston texas where I am from.

I have some postcards addressed to Galveston Texas .

The postcards are form 1905' 1909' and 1912 .

And I noticed something the cards only have a name and Galveston on it .

After reading your reply I started thinking Galveston did have a devastating storm back in 1900.

The population probably was very small to begin with and probably smaller after that .

I did look at a very old map of galveston and the town wasn't that big back then .

When I wrote that comment it was around 12:00 somewhere last night.

I was curious of two things.

1.postcard with just a name and address on them.

2.How maney night owl's were up.

I got 5 click's by 1:00.

no_more_room5 · ‎06-03-2014

Occasionally I've come across postcards and envelopes from the early 1900's that have small town postmarks and are addressed to a Name and then simply the word "City"