A Gift Of Postcards

A record of life in Rangeley

by J. Edward Ellis

In the year 1997 the Rangeley Lakes Region Historical Society was the beneficiary of the generous gift of a collection of three thousand postcards, all of the Rangeley Region. Perhaps on the surface this does not appear to be anything unusual, but it is a rare gift for two reasons. First, the mere fact that a little village of approximately fifteen hundred residents would have three thousand separate and different scenes is an oddity in itself. Second, this collection of postcards was appraised at over ten thousand dollars. So what is this phenomenon of collecting postcards?

The history of the postcard is an interesting one. They came into existence in the 1890s for the purpose of advising insurance clients of the amount due weekly against insurance policies, generally on the order of fifteen cents a week. Picture postcards came into being in 1895. The first postcards featured a picture on one side and only lines for name and address on the reverse. In fact, it was against post office rules to write a message on the card. In the earliest days of postcards, they were more expensive to send than a letter.

As time went on, senders started sneaking a little two- or three-word message on the card. As a result, the manufacturers started arranging to have a little white strip on the picture side of the card that would accommo- date a two- or three-line message and the die was cast for postcard messages.

In the early 1900s, the postcard went through another metamorphosis, and the postcard featured a picture on one side and a split back on the obverse so that half of the space would accept a message and the other half the address, much the same as we have today. Early postcards started out as black-andwhite pictures that were sent to Germany for coloring because the German method for print color was far superior to ours. However, when World War I came along this source was cut off and black-and-white postcards became popular by necessity.

Foreign coloring returned after the war, but by that time our own color processes had improved. Still, blackand-white pictures remained equally popular and were cheaper to produce. For example, in Rangeley there was a small Kodak shop operated by Sherm Hoar, and it was his practice to photograph unusual sights and scenes such as celebrations, snow storms, hurricanes and the like, and produce photo postcards of them. Eastman Kodak made them, and still makes, papers with a postcard back and a sensitized face for these photos.

After World War II, Kodachrome and Kodacolor processes came into being and pretty much since that time postcards have featured that very realistic and accurate coloring.

What is the appeal of postcards?

Over the period of over a hundred years, postcards are a wonderful record of scenes of the times. For example, in Rangeley there were in years gone by approximately a dozen resort hotels. Today only one remains. The others either disappeared because of fire or demolition as they outlived their popularity. Through postcards, we still have a visual record of such places as the Rangeley Lake Hotel, The Barker, the Mooselookmeguntic House, Mountain View House and so on. The same is true with many sporting camps and resorts. Main Street with its dirt surface roadway and the wooden sidewalks are properly recorded.

And how does such a compact area come up with between three and four thousand different postcard scenes? There is a singular situation that pertains to Rangeley. To begin with, we are talking of a period of over one hundred years. More important, however, is the fact that with the many resorts in the area, any one resort made postcards of the main lodge and one of each of the cabins surrounding the lodge. Then the vacationer could send cards home of “our cabin.” As well, he would probably send a picture of the beach area, the lake, the dining room, and on and on.

How this collection of postcards came into being is a story in itself. The collector’s wife was an avid collector of antiques and made an annual trek to Hallowell to visit the shops. Normally he sat in the car and waited for his wife to finish her tour. One summer it was unbearably hot in Hallowell, and he decided to roam the stores where it was somewhat cooler than the car. In doing so, he saw a box of postcards and on a whim, he looked for any postcards from Rangeley. There was one in particular postmarked 1927 which read, “Arrived here yesterday but it was too rough on the lake to look for the body. The men say it is dangerous when it is rough. Wish me luck tomorrow.”

(cont. on page 10)

(cont. from page 9)

What a disaster! Here was a poor, lonely woman writing a friend in Augusta about her husband or brother who had drowned, probably in a fishing accident. When the story was reported to his wife, her automatic question was “Did you buy it?” To which the answer was, “of course not!”

A year later, the same scenario took place and just for curiosity’s sake he went to see if the card was still there. It was, and he bought it. That single card grew to three thousand cards over the next twenty years.

At that time, postcards could regularly be purchased for between five and twenty cents. Today, the demand for postcards has increased a hundredfold, and it is not unusual to pay up to twenty dollars for a single card and even more in rare circumstances.

Postcards are sold regularly by postcard dealers. A typical show will take over a banquet hall at a motel or similar large space and fifty to a hundred aluminum picnic tables are covered with boxes and boxes of postcards. Cards are sorted by subject such as Guns, Blacks, Nudes, Trains, Train Stations, etc. Each of the fifty states is a separate category as well as major cities and countries of the world. For example, a box of postcards (or perhaps several boxes) for the state of Maine should properly be alphabetized by city and town. However, in the case of Rangeley, postcards can be found not only under the letter “R” but also “B” for Bald Mountain Camps, “M” for Mooselookmeguntic, “K” for Kennebago, “U” for Upper Richardson and so on. In other words, almost every letter of the alphabet seems to pertain in one way or another to the Rangeley Lakes Region!

Now in place in the Rangeley Lakes Region Historical Society, this collec- tion of three thousand postcards is a permanent record of a hundred years of life in the Rangeley Region. Give