Then and Now: Not a car in sight on Main Street in N. Conway

Old photographs of North Conway make it easy to understand why it was so popular in the days before the automobile, or even in the infancy of that invention, which is when this tree-lined photo of Main Street was taken. This postcard image was published in 1908, but it may have been taken a few years earlier. There are enough tandem, twisting tracks of narrow-tired vehicles in the dirt street to indicate the passage of primitive automobiles at some point in the recent past, but there are no cars to be seen. Magnifying the photo does show a horse and dray waiting under the shade in the left middle distance.

The scene is just south of Grove Street, which might have been called Thompson Corner a few years earlier. The photographer is standing in the midst of six homes owned by Thompsons, including the ornate Victorian manse of the late Kearsarge House owner Samuel W. Thompson, which stood out of sight to the right of the camera. The house at left is the home of Samuel’s son, William Thompson, who was a retired house painter in the early days of the 20th century.