Picture Box: McCarrell Collection
Dime Savings Institution, pictured around 1898. It was at the corner of South Main and West Wheeling streets in Washington.
The center building in this photo was the residence of L. McCarrell at 207 S. Main St. in Washington (present day Southern Charm and now 209 S. Main St.). Directly north was Acheson’s Grocery Store (present day Upper Crust), and directly south was either the office or residence of Dr. James Little (present day Keystone Club, housed in what looks to be a different structure all together).
Novelty Glassworks as it appeared after a fire, likely around May of 1895.
In the basement of the offices of Observer Publishing Company, tucked way back in a dark corner, is a closet with an industrial sliding door – secured with a padlock. Inside, it can’t be much larger than 6-feet by 6-feet. But on shelves from floor to ceiling are boxes of negatives, copies of original photos, and some original prints, dating well back into the early 20th century (a second, similar space holds photos even older, still, as well as large bound books containing the newspaper’s original printed pages). The photos on this page were plucked from a box labeled “McCarrell Collection: Old Photos from 1890s.” It’s worth noting that in the 1890s, photos were barely a part of the pages of the Washington Observer or the Washington Reporter.