Sepia Saturday #95

(I guess I'm going to have to start calling these "Sepia Sundays" since I keep posting a day too late!)

A BANNER TOPIC

Alan's photo prompt for this week's Sepia Saturday was reminiscent of suffragettes and parades, and we were invited to select a theme. I chose the theme of "banners," and in so doing I offer the following:

The Chamberlin Building in Lewisburg, PA circa 1910. The banners and other patriotic decorations are to celebrate an I.O.O.F. convention. Two different stores occupied the commercial space in the "Iron Front Building" as pictured here, a general store on the left and a shoe store on the right. Built in 1855, the building, with a cast iron over brick facade, was also home to the Independent Order of Oddfellows, the Red Cross, county welfare, a hardware store and an electrical supply store. The building still stands today and is on the National Register.

In the next block, more buildings are decorated in a similar fashion, although the photo is undated. From the left: a grocery store, hardware store, pharmacy, and a dry goods store.

This is the Saturday News newspaper office, circa 1918, decorated to celebrate the end of WWI. The paper was owned by Benjamin Focht, who served as both a PA State legislator and as a US Representative. Given the relative size of his banner, it would seem politicians were ostentatious back then, too!

And finally ...
The Banner Store! Built in 1835, it housed, in its lifetime, the above dry goods store, a jewelry store and a drug store, among others. I remember it being a men's clothing store where my father often purchased clothing and accessories, long before the advent of mega-huge shopping malls and the internet.

For more variations on a Sepia Saturday theme, clicky ==>> HERE!!

**Photo of the Chamberlin Building is part of a private collection. Photo of Market Street buildings is in the Packwood House Museum collection. The Saturday News and the Banner Store photos are from the Union County Historical Society collection. Information about the buildings is from the book "Lewisburg" by Marion Lois Huffines and Richard A Sauers, part of the Images of America series by Arcadia Publishing. Buy the book here. It's fabulous, as are other books in the Images of America series.