This postcard was neither addressed nor mailed, so there is no personal story connected to it.
A printed title identifies the scene: “Lincoln Highway Approaching Schellsburg from the East”
Schellsburg is a small borough in Bedford County of south-central Pennsylvania.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schellsburg,_Pennsylvania
The community was founded in 1800 by John Schell whose German grandparents had emigrated to Pennsylvania and prospered in what is now Montgomery County, PA.
John Schell, after serving in the American Revolution and having inherited some money from his father, began to search for more available land for his children and grandchildren.
After exploration in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley, he secured a large tract of land in what became Bedford County.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Schell-660
The first inhabitants of Schellsburg were family members and, later, neighbors from Montgomery County.
The founder preserved free land for schools and churches that served farmers from a wide area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schellsburg_Historic_District
Between 1920 and 1930, the population of Schellsburg was about 300 people.
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Some time ago, we saw a postcard story connecting Schellsburg to another small community in Bedford County:
More recently, we saw a postcard photograph of another portion of the Lincoln Highway in Bedford County”
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On the face, we see the highway making two loops or curves as it approaches the cluster of homes, a church, and the businesses of the community.
By the time this photo was made, the highway is fully paved and the two-way lanes are distinguished by a center line – which was not the case in the postcard photo of 1915.
Interestingly, the telephone poles that line the highway are painted white at the base – probably to safeguard drivers at night or in inclement weather.
This photograph was printed by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago and distributed by J. Robbins & Son of Pittsburgh.
(It is likely that Teich was reprinting an earlier postcard photograph.)
I expect that the tidy patchwork of fields, unobstructed by commercial signs and not paved over for strip malls, probably looks very different today.
Nevertheless, these scenes of open roads still evoke a yearning for a road trip.
