Prospect St., Bristol, Conn. 86.

Prospect St., Bristol, Conn. 86.

View of a city street with late 19th and early 20th century buildings. 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 Neo-Classical block at the center right was the home of the Bristol chapter of a fraternal organization called "The Improved Order of Red Men". The words "Imp'd. Order Red Men" appear on the entablature above the building's grand entrance porch. The oldest patriotic fraternity in the US, The Improved Order of Red Men was formed in the 1830s to commemorate the Colonists' alliance with the native American Mohawk tribe against the British. The Bristol chapter organized in the1850s, but after incorporating in 1901 required a larger home. They erected this structure in 1911, with a state armory on the ground floor and a large meeting hall on one of the upper stories. It was designed by the architect Walter Crabtree. In later years the building became the site of many town events. [source: historicbuildingsct.com]