One interesting, desolate looking town!
Great pic Jay. I have always wondered what the idea was behind the square front facade on all the buildings back then. On a happy note, at least the town has a garage.
There is nothing on main street these days.
2014
That appears to be the next to last building on the left side of the old photo.
Wow. Not much there even back in the day. Looks like the small towns that are gone and rotting away all over the USA.
Walters, MN has always been a very small town.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walters,_Minnesota
Population peaked in 1940 at 154. It's around 70 today.
I see just in front of the garage there's some sorta barriers. I guess the store front got driven into. People looking for a mechanic cuz of no brakes. maybe?
My guess is the "barriers" are barrels of oil, maybe even of gasoline. No gas pumps to be seen. They sure could be there to discourage "drive through" brake service though !
All those buildings with squared off facades are commercial premises. Maybe the idea was to have the business name up there.
Great pic.
Beautiful picture.
Lance Sorenson has posted several Minnesota photos with those wonderful false front buildings. I believe this is one of my favorites. It inspired a painting which I hope to share with you in the future. The architecture is very similar.
Rich
Falsefronts served two purposes:
1. A giant placard on which to attach one's store name and services.
2. It gave the visual appearance of being larger and more imposing.
Banks often employed the latter logic to make their institution appear
more substantial, safe, etc. They often went a step further, taking on
pretentious names like "First National Bank & Trust Co.". The public
subconsciously thinks that sounds more serious and secure than a
name like "Fred's Bank", even if FNB&T really was only just Fred and
a few employees. Same logic worked on the building edifices.