JSU News Wire

If you were standing across the street from the former site of the Iron Queen Hotel on Main Street (today it would be Brother's Bar on Pelham Rd. S.) and looking due north toward the square, this is what you'd see: City Cafe and a Pan-Am service station on the left, a narrow two-lane road with dirt on either side (rather than four lanes of asphalt today), and, in the distance, the brick building occupied by the First National Bank of Jacksonville. Certainly, in that day, you'd be well out of the road and safely out of the way of traffic. To get the same vew today, you have to stand on the busy state highway a moment, and even at 7 a.m. the traffic is heavy -- so you can't stand there for long. The image above is from the collection of Mrs. Edwerta Carpenter of Jacksonville; photo below by Al Harris.

Then & Now

South Pelham Rd., Early 1930s