Happy Birthday, Post Card!!!

Well, at least happy birthday from the day it was mailed. More about that below. The locomotive on the front of this post card is sitting at the Hartford and New Haven Railroad station in Meriden, Connecticut.

The post card was mailed on October 24, 1924. That means that it will be 100 years old tomorrow!! Here is a bit of information about the history of the Hartford and New Haven Railroad taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_and_New_Haven_Railroad The Hartford and New Haven Railroad of Connecticut was chartered in 1833 to build a railroad between Hartford and New Haven. It was one of the earliest railroads built in Connecticut and was intended both to improve New Haven's access to the interior of the state, and to provide an alternative to ship transport along the Connecticut River, which froze during the winter. Alexander Catlin Twining was commissioned to survey the railroad's route, originally intended to pass through Middletown, Connecticut. However, Twining decided during his survey that building through the hilly terrain around Middletown would be too difficult, and instead chose an alignment further west, via Meriden, Connecticut. The citizens of Middletown were unhappy about being bypassed, but they would have to wait for more than a decade before a branch line reached their city. The grandfather of J. P. Morgan was an original investor, laying the foundation for the long association between Morgan and the railroads of New England. Construction started from New Haven in 1836, with a temporary halt caused by the Panic of 1837. The first portion of the line, from New Haven to Meriden, saw its first trains in December 1838, while the rest of the line to Hartford opened in December of the following year. From the looks of it, this train station was built in 1882. It is that blue roof with the flagpole on it that tells me it is the 1882 station. Here is a different post card that shows it. Unfortunately, this post card is not part of my collection. Two other stations have followed in the footsteps of the 1882 station.

This picture is of the 1882, but not my post card.

This station is the 1942 version of the train station:

And this is the latest version of the Meriden train station. It is from 2007.

The post card was mailed on October 24, 1924. That means that tomorrow will be the 100th anniversary of the mailing. The card is actually older than that, but I can celebrate only what I know. The post card was published by The August Schmelzer Company from, of all places, Meriden, Connecticut. The company existed from 1906 to 1912. This post card was already about 12 years old when it was mailed. I did some research looking for August Schmelzer. This is what I found. It is part of his obituary. “President of August Schmelzer coal company and a director of Meriden Hospital. Came to the U.S. in 1870. In 1873 he opened a stationary store in Meriden and for several years he was in the trucking business. Served on the Meriden Common Council.” So, it looks like the company that published the post card was a temporary stop on the way to business success for Mr. Schmelzer.