Suffolk News-Herald

Postcards featuring the city of Suffolk – some stamped as far back as 1907 – are finally being delivered.

&uot;Suffolk in Vintage Postcards,&uot; a book compiled and authored by the Suffolk-Nansemond Historical Society, was released by Arcadia Publishing this week. The eclectic collection of more than 200 postcards shows readers a pictorial history of the growing city during the early and mid-1900s.

&uot;I hope people enjoy and learn something from this book,&uot; said Sue Woodward, president of the Suffolk-Nansemond Historical Society. &uot;I learned a lot putting it together.

&uot;There are a lot of pictures in this book that people won’t find in many other places.&uot;

Among the more unusual are different views of the peanut factories, churches and various neighborhoods in the city, she said.

Whenever possible, Woodward said, she tried to put postcards featuring the same streets or buildings at different time periods on the same page.

&uot;The comparison is always interesting,&uot; she said.

Equally surprising was the number of postcards featuring images of the Portsmouth-owned water treatment facility on West Washington Street, Woodward said. There were several cards of showing the &uot;waterworks&uot; area of Lake Kilby, which began providing water to Portsmouth, Suffolk and Berkley in early 1900s.

Woodward – in the book – indicated that the popularity of the waterworks as a postcard subject was probably the mammoth size of the project for that era.

Most of the postcards in the book come from the collections of Henry Frazier and Tommy O’Connor, two members of the historical society, she said.

The postcard books sell for $19.99. Locally, it can be purchased at Main Street Station and Railroad Museum and Riddick’s Folly.

It can also be purchased from area bookstores, including Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Walden’s.