A visit to a Post card exhibit at a local museum

As you may recall, earlier in this year, I wondered aloud if post cards were part of my card collection, or if they are a separate thing, totally different? It's been on the backburner because I just could not make up my mind, even though I have begun to add some whenever I can-particularly using them in place of trading cards on the various adventures my brother has been taking me on.

Well, I made up my mind today. They DO count. The exhibition I saw today cemented that idea. What pushed me to finally make my decision? The fact that the post cards on display are all local. One of my rarely-discussed on here but high priority in real life interests is architecture. It almost never appears on trading cards. But it does appear on post cards...in fact, it's one of the main topics of post cards, at least in my experience. 

Today's exhibit, called "Vintage Views", featured scans of 1500 local post cards and dozens of old photographs, circa 1910, of Poughkeepsie, NY, which is where I tell people I'm from- my actual home town is pretty small and most people have never heard of it. Poughkeepsie used to be a major city, and is still pretty major in my book. 

If I want to have places and things I know- home, essentially- in my card collection, I have to be willing to include post cards. So, that's that. Decision made. 

The Museum that hosted this exhibit was the Clinton Corners Historical Society. It was held in a building built in 1777- the building itself is incredibly awesome...and even has it's own Wikipedia page.. I had never been in Clinton Corners, NY, before today. It's a little bit northeast of Poughkeepsie, and it's not really built up. (That's a great thing). It's mostly farms, separated by swaths of forest and old houses, some of which are spectacular. I never had a reason to go there before. It's a ways away from the roads to get to Lake George, and it's well north of the route taken to get to Connecticut. But I liked the area. After we left, instead of going home the same way, we decided to go left and ended up following the Salt Point Turnpike to it's conclusion, and then just following Route 82 home. The ride, to me, was just about as fun as the museum. I used to go for rides all the time, back in the day. Some were pretty far ranging- one of the most memorable ended up involving three states, for example. But, over time, car problems and health problems had put an end to them. While the health problems are still a concern, and are actually worse now, as I've also noted, I'm tired of getting beaten by my own body. I decided I wanted to see and do things, and just deal with the pain. You've seen the fun things I've been doing, some that I always wanted to do, some I had no idea existed so couldn't possibly want to do-it's a result of that new mindset, of wanting to see and do these things while I'm still able. 

I ended up taking 497 photos on the day, and I won't be posting them all. I will post that give a solid overview of the trip, with a link to my website with the rest. 

The building

A photo of the old railroad station. The tracks in Poughkeepsie lead directly to Grand Central Station in NYC. The building with Feed and Flour on the roof survived, abandoned, until about a decade ago...I remember seeing the faded words and empty window frames every time we went into Poughkeepsie. Although the photo is not dated, this train station was replaced in 1918.

I remember seeing this plant. Was torn down circa 1999. I also have some comic books that were printed here, and I've seen a car that was built here- extremely rare-that has lived in Dutchess County 

it's entire life.

There were too many photos to get each one individually, so most were done in groups of 4 or 6 depending on size. The Smith Brothers cough drops were world famous- even parodied on Popeye cartoons- and were in Poughkeepsie. The location of their factory is now completely overgrown, nothing of the building survives. Vasser Hospital, I owe my life to. Although that building no longer survives, their later building is where I was taken when I came literally 5 minutes short of dying in 2013. I have seen this photo before- there's a copy in the hospital lobby.

 An overview of the photo wall

The Mid-Hudson Bridge- visible in the center left- is the main way I get to the western side of the Hudson River and beyond. Every trip to Lake George, to Toledo, etc, always go across that bridge. It opened in 1925, and connects Poughkeepsie and Highland. A relative of mine was part of the crew that built it- my great-grandmother's brother, to be exact. 

Hmm, I wonder if I can find a working copy of that camera type...

 They have a section of the wall that's made of clear glass or plastic, where you can see the inside of the original wall.

An overview of some of the many post cards on display.

 It was hot today- got up to 93 degrees according to my brother's car- and we saw some cows standing in a pond. It's the second time in my life I've seen a cow or cows taking refuge from the heat in a pond!

 Thought that was a nice photo.

 That church on the top left is about 5 minutes from my house- it's still there. Main Street in Hughsonville is in walking distance from my house. There's no sidewalk and that road is crazy busy these days, so I don't actually walk to it- but if there was a sidewalk, I could, easily.

 That Staatsburg Fire Apparatus is now in the FASNY Fireman's Museum- I saw it in person a couple of weeks back! You can see it at the very end of the aisle in the second photo in my post about it. I didn't choose to post the full photos I took when I made that post.

This is a hand-made dress that was made by a person named Chloe Clinton around 1910! 

 I wish I could have seen the ships plying the Hudson. There are a LOT of cards issued for them. If I ever choose to actually start spending money on hobbies again, I will begin chasing them in earnest.

The Mary Powell is a very famous local ship- she was included in the 1961 Parker Brothers American Heritage Steamboats set, I believe.

I had no idea this was ever around here! 

A rare image of the auto racing held at the Dutchess County Fair in 1908. This appears to be part of a set produced by the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, which is now known as the Poughkeepsie Journal- and is the second oldest newspaper in the entire USA, having been in continuous production since 1785. Now that I know this set exists, I will begin looking for a copy for my own collection.

Despite being in operation since the 1770s, this cemetery, which is still active, is not very full. There were wooden headstones back in the day that do not survive.

 I was pleasantly surprised to see that an old car had parked right next to my brother while we were in the museum. It's a 1981 Fiat.

 Out here on the Salt Point Turnpike it's mostly farmland.

This photo, which is actually a failed attempt at capturing an old car parked in somebody's driveway, shows the rolling hills and farmlands of Clinton Corners. 

Although it will take several hours, all of the photos I took- 485 after eliminating the blurry ones- will appear on my website HERE. Edit to add: They finally finished uploading at 9:08 PM. it only took a little over two hours, that's actually surprisingly fast.

Oddly enough they did not have any post cards of their historical building available for purchasing.