TALCOTT W.Va. (Hinton News) – I had forgotten about this photograph that an older person in the community gave me several years ago. When they did, they said it was taken behind what is now the John Henry Museum in Talcott. It appears to be a baptism. But the location never made much sense to me as Trinity United Methodist Church is just a little way out of the pic to the left. The riverbank behind it is much lower and less steep than this area.
The postcard you see is an early view of the “new” bridge built across the Greenbrier River in Talcott. “The old original iron Talcott bridge you see here in the photo was erected in 1905. The Talcott Toll Bridge Company began taking applications on March 15, 1905, for a new 16ft toll bridge to be erected to span the Greenbrier River in Talcott.”
I recently found this postcard of the old bridge in Talcott. It reads “New Bridge Spanning Greenbrier at Talcott, W.Va. View Looking East.” I am including this image of the bridge because even though I have seen many old photos of it, you get the feeling of its height. Which helps prove the baptism photo is in Talcott. The photo must have been taken from the bridge looking west.
The white house you see in the upper right was the L.G. Rhodes house, built for L.G. He owned and operated the store where the John Henry Museum is today. The store sits directly to its right out of view. The house you can see off in the distance to the left is either one up Pie Hollow. Or the “Burr House” that sits just across the way from my Grandfather Bernard Thompson’s house. If he said “The Burr House” to me once, he said it five thousand times over the years.”
