This postcard shows a view looking east down St. Louis Street toward Jefferson before 1907, when the Colonial Hotel was built. This busy street scene shows a streetcar loading in passengers, many pedestrians in turn-of-the-century clothing and several horse-drawn carriages and wagons.

The roadway could have been paved with brick or with the more unusual wooden blocks with which it was paved until the 1930s. At the time of this embellished photograph St. Louis Street had one to two blocks of commercial establishments followed by a wealthy residential street further east. As the years passed commercial enterprises expanded east down St. Louis Street, displacing the beautiful and historic houses originally occupying St. Louis Street.

The postcard is postmarked 1909. It contains a message from a son en route to Enid, Oklahoma, and stopping in Springfield on the way from Buffalo, Missouri. The son is named Gil and he writes to Mrs. William H. Roper of Buffalo.