The Petersburg, Hopewell, & City Point Railway in Petersburg, Virginia; 1935
Petersburg, Hopewell, & City Point Railway 1907 Stephenson car #106 caught somewhere in downtown Petersburg, Virginia. The date is 1935 and the Petersburg, Hopewell, & City Point has only three more years left until total liquidation. On this section of Then & Now, we will take a look at the above photograph and how the same area compares today. I will go through the process of finding the exact location including identifying definite landmarks and roads. I hope you enjoy this voyage into Virginia history.
First off, some notes to help identify the modern day location.
Railroad: Petersburg, Hopewell, & City Point Railway
Town: Petersburg, Virginia
Date: 1935
Notes:
Based on trolley pole configuration, car is heading towards the photographer.
There appears to be a church located directly behind the car.
Line is double tracked suggesting area sees high amounts of traffic.
Area towards left contains a high density of vegetation suggesting park or rural area.
Step one to finding the exact location of a shot is to study the route of the railway itself. Unfortunately, information relating to this electric interurban is sparse so I had to do some digging just to find this piece of info. Reading this article, one can see that the line terminated at the corner of Wythe Street and Sycamore Street in Petersburg. That would be a good starting point as that location would probably be one of the busiest portions of the railway.
Looking at this topographic map of Petersburg from 1945, one can notice that there is what appears to be a church located adjacent to the intersection of Wythe and Sycamore. Sycamore Street is the bolded line heading north south. Rail lines to the north are of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
However, notice how this modern day satellite image of the same location shows no church at the intersection of Wythe and Sycamore. In fact, the whole road design has changed! Instead of Wythe street ending at the intersection, the road now crosses over Sycamore heading further west. To allow with the expansion of Wythe, the old church must have been demolished. Now all that's left is Church's Chicken; possibly an ode to the religious structure that once stood near that same spot?
Bingo! Searching online, I was able to locate a postcard of what appears to be a church that no longer stands on Sycamore Street. The information on the site I found this illustration on states that the postcard was made circa 1910-1920, fitting in the timeframe of the original photograph. Take note of what appears to be streetcar tracks in the foreground.
On the left is a closeup of one of the towers from the postcard while on the right is a closeup of one of the buildings in the background of the topic photo. Is it me, or do those structures seem to be exact matches? Note the semi circle arches over the windows and doors as well as the roof design. The only major difference is the addition of a window on the main structure as shown in the topic photo. I think it's safe to say that the building located directly behind the topic photo is indeed the Second Baptist Church of Petersburg. The identification of this building confirms the exact location of the topic photo to be on Wythe Street looking west.
I will conclude this installment of Then & Now by providing the original photograph along with a Google streetview image of the exact location as it appears now. As with most urban areas, this location has drastically changed with almost nothing remaining from when this photo was taken. The church is long demolished, the trolley long scrapped, and the literal roadway changed. This is why it is so important to preserve history as areas can completely change in only one lifetime. Maybe the trolley tracks still remain in the pavement waiting for the rumbling of the next trolley that will never come.
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