Dating An Old Photograph

 

Dating an old photo.

Last week on the McHenry Area Historical Society Facebook page, I posted this old photo of Green Street looking north towards Elm Street. Due to being short on time, I dated it to being pre-1922.

 

Taking a little more time this morning, I was able to date this photo to 1911 or earlier.

So how did I date this old photo of Green Street? Look closely at it. In the left-hand corner, there is a building. Not much of it shows but judging by the building on the right-hand side, we know the building on the left sits where Green Street Cafe is today.

Knowing the early history of McHenry, that building in the photo is the old Owen Bros. Mill built in 1851. To the north of it, stood the Owen Bros. Implement Store.

 

 

Working with the McHenry Plaindealer and the old Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for McHenry which cover the years 1893, 1898, 1912, 1922, and 1933, I found that the Mill still stood in 1898 but by 1912, only the Implement building was there. By the 1922 map, the McHenry Ice Cream Company was located on that site.

I found an article in the Plaindealer showing that the Implement building was razed in 1915.

So when was the Mill razed? There were no front page articles discussing it. No photos of it being torn down.

In this case, perseverance paid off. I just kept digging until I found a small ad placed in the Plaindealer and dated 6 July, 1911 by Wm. Bonslett. He had purchased the old run down mill and was selling off the lumber from it before razing it completely.

 

 

Not all photos are this easy to date. You have to look for the details in the photo and know where to find the information that you need to date it.

Thank goodness we live in a time where we have access to great tools like the old McHenry Plaindealer available at Newspapers.com and the old Sanborn Fire Ins. Maps.

Here at the MAHS, we have put together a booklet containing all 5 years of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of McHenry, Illinois. If you would like to purchase a copy for your own research, you can find it here:

https://www.magcloud.com/user/mahs