mailscreenwagons

"Harvey Management" means it was part of the Harvey House hotel chain, one of the early chains run by Frederick Harvey a pioneer of the hotel management business. The Bisonte Hotel was in Hutchinson, Kansas, built in 1906, closed in 1946 and was subsequently demolished. Here's an article about Fred Harvey: www.hotelinteractive.com/index.asp?page_id=5000&artic... See this link about Harvey Houses in Kansas, which includes a photograph of the Hutchinson Downtown Inn and Suites which presently occupies the site: www.harveyhouses.net/states/kansas/kshouses.html A railway hotel, adjacent to the Sante Fe railroad, it was the equivalent of the modern day airport hotel. A great piece of hotel history. As for the postal connection? I'm not sure. For the time being I suppose that the wagon and horse were for mail delivery or conveyance. The persistent URL back to the SI does not yield much information.

Nice old photo. Added to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchinson,_Kansas Thanks for posting these!

Peter D. Tillman Thanks for providing this link, Pete! Susannah Smithsonian Institution Archives

An online search of old newspapers found an ad for S. B. Newman & Co., a printing & bookbinding company located at 617 S Gay St in Knoxville, TN. Given that we appear to be looking at the backside of the business, I think we're just off of Market St SW, in the alley between Church Ave S and Clinch Ave S. That would put us on the backside of the Old Customs House, the first floor of which, according to Wikipedia, was used as a post office until around 1934. Here's the view today in Google Street View. The road's been redone a bit, and the buildings at the end of the alley are gone, but the windows, arches, keystones, etc, of the Old Customs House to our left definitely look right. The Customs House is now home to the East Tennessee Historical Society. I sent them a tweet with a link to this page, figured they might be interested.

severinus, had i seen your comment i wouldn't have filled my sunday afternoon doing the research to prove the same point!

pomonobo productions Heh, well I hope the research was still enjoyable. And nice work with the "today" shot; I would've loved to've stolen that thunder from you too, but being in Seattle I had to settle for Google :)

Thank you both for your interest. This is fantastic information, and I especially enjoy the then-and-now view! I'll be sure the pass this along to my colleagues at the National Postal Museum. Susannah Smithsonian Institution Archives

A curator at the National Postal Museum confirmed the information you found, @severinus. We updated the caption with the location and postmaster's name. Thank you again for your help in identifying this image! Effie Smithsonian Institution Archives