oldreliable

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

Of White Star's three ships of this type, the Olympic lasted the longest. The Brittanic was sunk in the Mediterranean while functioning as a hospital ship during WWI. The Olympic was called Old Reliable, and was finally broken up in 1937. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Olympic

And then, of course, the third ship of the type was the Titanic.

Actually, the Titanic was the second. The Brittanic (originally called Gigantic) was the third. After the Titanic went down they put her on hold for a bit, building up the watertight compartments and adding a lot more lifeboats. She never got a chance to be a passenger liner, though.

Amazing photo! Thank you once again LOC!

Haven't parts of the Olympic been used in a pub in England or Ireland?