From the desk of Alison Gibson, Director
This is one of our earliest postcards. Postmark is 1906, and that the reverse is only for the address also indicates it had to be pre-1907. It wasn’t until March of 1907 that the postal service allowed ‘divided back’ postcards. Not much room on the front of the card to write a note!
If you look closely, you can see the J.A. Steen, Dentist sign on the corner of 2nd and Main. Steen was in Ripley for quite a while, but not always on the second floor of the Maddox Drug Store as seen here.
The earliest Steen dentist mentioned in the Ripley Bee is 1879, where the advertisement read “has moved to Ripley, Ohio in new brick building on Second Street opposite school house” He is also mentioned in the 1877-78 directory as dentist, e s second, s of market, res same (so he was working out of his house, east side of 2nd Street, south of Market St) We wish we could find more early directories of the area, and if any of our readers know of any, we’d love to be able to scan and add to our collection.
Hard to believe it is the middle of November, and holiday season is ramping up. We have lots of cookbooks for inspiration, as well as magazines for decorating, gift and recipes ideas. Yes, we know that there is access to ideas online, but sometimes, flipping through pages and realizing magazines and books are a little more edited than blogs makes the suggestion a bit more solid! Always open to suggestions on new books and movies—we use a lot of selection tools, but sometimes a suggestion from a library patron is the best.
