These amazing photographs from Special Collections Research Center that depicted commercial buildings in rural northwestern Ohio with recently installed Central Union Telephone Company phones. The Central Union Telephone Company brought local and long distance calling to commercial buildings and advertised the new service with signage.
Signs for Central Union can be seen in these photographs, and they could have been used as a way to document their placement. There are a variety of commercial buildings present in the photographs, as well as, telephone poles, merchant's signs, displays of goods, customers, horse drawn wagons, and bicycles.
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| Commercial buildings of Ohio in the early 1900s |
Signs for Central Union can be seen in these photographs, and they could have been used as a way to document their placement. There are a variety of commercial buildings present in the photographs, as well as, telephone poles, merchant's signs, displays of goods, customers, horse drawn wagons, and bicycles.
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| Front view of three-story building with Piper's Grocery storefront at street level |
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| Front view of two-story building |
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| House with telephone pole |
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| Lease & Twining storefront |
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| Single-story commercial building housing the office of 'W.E. Chapple, Notary Public and Farm Loans' |
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| The Crawford County Gas & Electric |
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| Three-story building with an awning that reads '[undecipherable] & Coonrod' on first floor |
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| Three-story commercial building |
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| Two-story commercial building featuring the Tschanen Bros. store |
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| Two-story commercial building |
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| White Star laundry storefront |
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| Wisman & Mohler grocery storefront |
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| Wyckoff Bros. storefront |
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| A two-story commercial building housing a laundry office |
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| A two-story commercial building housing a shoe store called F.A. Gonant |
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| A.D. Baumhart - The Druggist Store |
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| Abandoned looking storefront of two-story commercial building |
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| Bank building |
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| Building with Bell telephone sign |
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| 'Clothing. Furnishings & Men's Shoes. M. Sherman & Co.' storefront |
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| Commercial building featuring a doorless entryway in the center |
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| Commercial building featuring a store selling shoes and rubbers called Manning Bros. |
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| Commercial building with telephone sign |
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| DeWitt storefront |
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| Drugs & Medicines store |
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| Front and side view of large residential house with a porch |
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| Front and side view of two-story commercial building |
