Hermosa, South Dakota, 1927.George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
- Small towns in the United States have mixed histories. While some small towns have grown over the past century, others have become ghost towns.
- Up until the 1930s, horse-drawn carriages and automobiles could still be seen on the same streets.
- Schools and banks in some small towns were just a tiny, single building.
Main Street in your town likely looked quite different a century ago. While some small towns have grown in the past 100 years, others were abandoned, particularly after mining prospects dried up.
The streets were likely shared by new automobiles and traditional horse-drawn carriages, which were present up until the 1930s.
In some villages and small towns, like Normal, Nebraska, the bank was a building smaller than a house. In Hugo, Oregon, the high school was the size of a mid-sized church.
Take a look at what small towns looked like 100 years ago.