(photo courtesy of Dee Dreeszen) - click to enlarge -
Looking Up Welch Street
Postcard from about 1911
Looking Up Welch Street
Postcard from about 1911
This view looks south across Boone Street (renamed Lincoln Way after 1914) towards Welch Street. Development in Campustown is just beginning. And although Lake LaVerne has not yet been constructed, the new bridge over College Creek that connects the campus to Welch Avenue has just been constructed. To the left of Welch Street (now Welch Avenue), the brick Champlin Building (1909) and Champlin Livery are visible. Friley Dormitory now stands in the foreground to the right.
This view looking east across the College Creek bridge was taken shortly after the photo above. The columns bearing glass spheres are now in place. The enlargement of the extreme right portion of this photo (seen below) shows no development on the south side of Boone Street (still unpaved).
This enlargement of the above photo shows an unpaved Boone Street. This narrow road will later handle heavy traffic and be known as the Lincoln Highway. The bare grassy slope will later be occupied by St. John's Episcopal Church adjacent to the Stanton Avenue intersection.
Although the road has been widened, the western abutment of College Creek Bridge still survives.
This postcard view from about 1912 looks north across College Creek Bridge towards the Iowa State College campus. Lake LaVerne will later be formed to the right. Towards the left, a portion of Central Building (Beardshear Hall) is visible behind Alumni Hall. The house in the center of the photo was the home of Edgar Stanton, (after 1922 known as The Maples and after 1928 called Music Hall). View more images of the Welch Avenue intersection.
This 1908 map shows no connection from Campus to Welch before the construction of the College Creek Bridge. The only southern entrance to central Campus was at the unusual split intersection at Lynn Avenue (because of the interurban crossing). The map also shows that Boone Street (Lincoln Way) wasn't graded west from Hyland. Traffic heading towards Boone generally headed through West Gate and along West Street. After the bridge was in place, the Welch intersection, called South Gate, aided this traffic flow west and became an important entrance to campus.
(click to enlarge)
The Sanborn Insurance map shows Campustown
development
in the area around Welch Avenue as it existed
in the 1930s and 1940s.
The top photo of this page shows several houses
on the west side of Welch Avenue.
The pillared house visible near the top of
the hill was the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity house.
back to photos previously featured
in The Tribune's series entitled From the
Archives
