After two and a half years of posts, I’ve lost track of all the ‘Fayetteville Street’ postcards we’ve featured on Flashback Friday. Most of them depict Raleigh’s ‘Main Street’ looking north toward the State Capitol. So, why not? Let’s visit the scene yet again — the year, 1946.

Fayetteville Street – Raleigh’s principal thoroughfare is Fayetteville Street. The State Capitol Building is located at the north end and Memorial Auditorium is located at the south end. Located on this street are several handsome office buildings, state buildings, hotels, and better class stores.

Throughout its 120-year history, Raleigh’s ‘Main Street’ has long been a compelling draw for both residents and visitors alike.

4/2/46
Made a short stop here this afternoon. Expect to be in Washington tomorrow p.m. This is quite a city.
Frank.

Now, I doubt ‘Frank’ had much time to take in the “handsome office buildings, state buildings, hotels, and better class stores” that lined Fayetteville Street, but apparently he did find a minute or two to mail this postcard back home to Bridgeport, Connecticut. During his brief stop over, though, Frank did observe that Raleigh is “quite a city.”

Fayetteville Street — A Postcard Retrospective

Here are a couple postcards we’ve previously published on Flashback Friday that show the transformation of Fayetteville Street from the early 1900s to the mid-1960s.

The vantage point of these ‘then and now’ postcard views are of the 200 block looking north toward the State Capitol.

Most of the buildings seen in our 1946 postcard view this week were demolished decades ago. So, I thought that, as while we’re in a ‘flashback’ mode, maybe our readers would enjoy reviewing a few posts we’ve previously published on Flashback Friday which depict many of Fayetteville Street’s landmark buildings, both past and present. After all, Raleigh is quite a city.

Fayetteville Street landmarks, in no particular order:

Masonic Temple, Walgreens, Citizens National Bank, Wachovia Bank Building, Durham Life Insurance Building, Memorial Auditorium, Century Post Office, Wake County Courthouse, Raleigh Municipal Building and Auditorium, Hotel Sir Walter, Yarborough House Hotel

Fayetteville Street was listed as an historic urban district on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Our Flashback Friday ‘linen’ type postcard this week was published by Durham-based North Carolina News Company, and was printed by the Curt Teich Co. of Chicago under the trade name ‘C.T. Art-Colortone.’

Curt Teich Co.   1893-1974 Chicago, IL

A major publisher and printer. Their U.S. factories turned out more cards in quantity than any other printer. They published a wide range of national view-cards of America and Canada. Many consider them one of the finest producers of White Border Cards. The Linen Type postcard came about through their innovations as they pioneered the use of offset lithography. They were purchased by Regensteiner Publishers in 1974 which continued to print cards at the Chicago plant until 1978.

Our featured postcard is an example of the ‘linen’ type, popular in the 1930s and ’40s.

A Linen is a reference to a postcard that has a linen-like fabric texture embossed into its front surface. The Curt Teich Co. of Chicago was the first to use this texture for large scale production starting in 1931. Some publishers produced postcards with a linen texture on them years earlier as novelties, but only cards manufactured after 1931, when they dominated the market, are referred to as Linens. Though printed alongside photochromes for many years, the use of linens ended by 1959 as chromes became more popular with the public.

“Flashback Friday” is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week end treat!