Question: Here is a photo of two gentlemen and a dog sitting on the back of a truck. Do you know where the photo was taken and for what occasion? Who are these men?
Last week’s answer: Last week’s photo was taken on Canal Street — remember, that is the former name of East Genesee Street when the Baldwin Canal ran along it. Farmers have their tobacco wagons lined up waiting to be loaded onto canal boats so that the crop can be shipped to the “big three” tobacco companies.
Growing tobacco was a very labor intensive crop, but it was also very lucrative. Many farmers paid their mortgages and other bills with the profits. At one time one of the banks, about to go under, was saved then the farmers deposited their earnings.
There are 3 photos in the library collection of tobacco wagons lined up in the village awaiting transport. The most common one shows the wagons facing east toward a Baldwin Canal Bridge and the weigh station which was located approximately across from Virginia Street. The date on this postcard photo says 1897. Another photo in the collection shows a lineup of wagons on Oswego Street from just north of the Four Corners to Elizabeth Street. That seems strange, but the speculation is that maybe they had come from Van Buren and are heading on Oswego and turning on Elizabeth Street and Virginia and then to Canal Street. It is no doubt that there was a traffic jam when the tobacco buyers were in town and the crop was being shipped to market.
The photo from last week looks like it was taken before 1897, as the building to the left of the darkest pole in the foreground shows a door or some kind of opening under the peak of the roof. In the 1897 photo that opening has clearly been sealed over. Further evidence on the location — to the left out of the picture was the Amos Mill (other buildings on the left help to prove that). The two-story building with all of the windows is now a one-story building just south of the Baldwin Canal Bridge on the east side of lower Oswego Street. The building in the distance to the right of the closest pole is the Upson building that was located on the southeast corner of the Four Corners. The street coming out onto Canal in the lower right corner at first thought was Virginia but other parts of the photo make that statement not so positive. It may be a crossing a little further west of Virginia.
For those that are more curious, there will be a poster in the Local History room window at the library showing the photos. Maybe we can analyze the photos closer and come up with the exact spot on Canal Street.
Email your guess to [email protected] or leave a message at 315-434-8889 ext. 332 with your guess by noon Friday. If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo before the deadline, your name and guess will appear in next week’s newspaper, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
