Most of the postcards of Petersburg focus on Sycamore Street. It expanded southward in stages throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries and became southside Virginia’s retail center.
During this period as the street expanded and businesses came and went new postcards were produced as a record of these changes.
This particular postcard records Sycamore Street over a century ago at the intersection of Bank Street. Many of the buildings once located at this intersection are now gone. Two such structures were the Century Theater and the Bowers House. Both structures can be seen in the photographs below.
Century Theatre
The Bowers house was surveyed in 1968 by the Historic American Buildings Survey. At the time it was occupied by Magee’s Corner Store. This Federal style building we constructed in 1829 for William H. Bowers, a wealthy dry goods merchant, with his store on the ground floor and living area above.
