Egremont - 1911 and 2009

While at a fun breakfast place in Egremont, Danielle, our familiar server, brought out one-hundred-year-old photographs of the area and pointed out some of the buildings still standing along the road. At first we could see no similarities, but then realized that we were thinking about them east to west, whereas the photo had been taken looking from west to east from near electrified trolley stop 21, a small shed and the end of the trolley line. Once we became oriented, we suggested that we find the original camera position, retake the shot, and compare the result, which is a retirement hobby for us labeled here "then and now."
We took a quick reference photo and used it to locate the original camera placement, which fortunately was just some two hundred feet west of our breakfast on the north side of the highway and just at the west side of the junction of a lane coming down from the farms up on Baldwin Hill. That junction, a house with two chimneys on the left, a hint of a slope in the center distance at the far turn of the then dirt road, and a now barely visible limestone foundation and doorway to the right (midway behind the fence and trees on the right) provided four positive location points.
What a difference almost 100 years makes to a town. The trolley and its shed and overhead lines are gone, replaced by electric, telephone, and TV cable lines. The dirt lane and road have been paved several times. The house on the left has had its chimneys replaced, its porch closed in, and the roof raised. The trees on the right virtually hide the old building behind and its old limestone foundation. That building also has been modified but retains the little swooping overhang shown in the old photo above the main door. Of course, the big elms are gone, replaced by more formal plantings, and automobiles now park in front our breakfast place, a relatively recent building.