From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection
Railroad Station, Baltic, Conn. 17T
View of a railroad station built into a low hillside, with tracks in the foreground. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. The station served the Baltic Stone Cotton Mill stop along the Hartford, Providence & Fishkill Railroad. The apparatus on the station's lower roof is a "...train order board. In the photo it's retracted. When a train was expected and it had to receive new or modified orders to proceed, the station agent would crank the board (showing the orders) downward and (it)...would be in full view of the engineer." [source: Cameron Gilchrist]
