Susan Lawrence Dana’s Neighbors
Horse-drawn carriages, trolleys, some delivery vans – these were the modes of transportation in the early 1900s in Springfield. Cars were scarce. People walked, hopped the trolley or took the train on Third Street to venture out of the city. Downtown was the site of numerous groceries, drugstores and shops that catered to every need – men’s fashions and hats, women’s clothing, boots and shoes, paints and wallpaper, china and glassware, jewelry, machines, etc. Arches stood on each of the four corners of the Old State Capitol block, and the downtown came alive for a yearly carnival during the state fair, held in late September.