I knew what I wanted to use for the dust jacket of my photographic history of Stuart, Florida before I began to assemble it.

The image is from a postcard. It took me years to realize it was the product of Harry Hill’s Florida Photographic Concern.

THIS IS THE POSTCARD:

Could there be a better, more beautiful image for my dust jacket?

At the front of the book I put a “full-bleed” photograph (meaning it covered the entire 12 inch by 9 inch page) of a very similar photograph.

Below this photograph, I inserted a quote from Ernie Lyons “The business district of our old town was ugly. It was a single row of frame stores with false fronts along Flagler Avenue and the railroad tracks. It looked like nothing so much as a Western mining town” I credited the photograph to Robert Gladwin.

 Robert Gladwin, a member of a Ft. Pierce pioneer family, rescued many Florida Photograph Concern glass negatives when they were being broken, scattered and lost to posterity. He recognized their value and learned to clean and print them. They became the basis of the founding of the Saint Lucie Historical Society.  Robert Gladwin and another member of a Ft. Pierce pioneer family, A. A “Buck” Henry Jr., became my friends. They gave me historical photographs of Stuart and Jensen.   The photographs were the product of THE FLORIDA PHOTOGRAPHIC CONCERN.

My next blog will be about early postcards, printed in Germany.