Like many of you, I grew up hearing stories of my grandparent’s childhood. I loved hearing about the old family farm, how they’d walk miles each day to go to school or church, etc. One part of their recollections that I always had a hard time picturing were their childhood homes and the fact that they didn’t have indoor plumbing or electricity. As you can imagine, when I came across these 15 pictures my jaw literally dropped at just how much the world has changed between the 1930s and now:
1. "A colony of twenty adobe houses built by the inhabitants with materials supplied by the Great Western Sugar Company. Thirteen of the houses are used, seven being unfit for habitation. In the thirteen houses, there live approximately fifty people. Being in limits of an incorporated town (Hudson) there is a water system. However, there is only one outlet (an outdoor spigot) for this whole colony. No electricity, gas or sewerage system."
3. "Home and old log cabin on a peach grower's farm. This man came from Oklahoma determined never again to dry land farm; his peaches are irrigated. He was fortunate in finding a place to rent from a farmer who was very old and wanted to move to town."
6. "Kitchen with stove bought last winter from Denver salesman. Great Western Sugar Company's beet sugar workers colony at Hudson, Colorado. The housewife says, "The man told me it would save its cost in food, but the roof leaks so bad it's getting all rusted up. (Notice hole in adobe wall above stove; this stove cost the earnings of about three months' work of all the workers in this family.)"
7. "Old house in Silverton, Colorado. This was the type of house built by mine and mill operators in the early days. The type of house built in the early days indicates that the owners felt that the mining operations would be one of a permanent nature."
11. "Home of Ernest W. Kirk Jr., FSA (Farm Security Administration) client near Ordway, Colorado. He runs an irrigated forty-acre farm which he rented from his landlord, a judge. His landlord is purchasing the eighty acres next to him, so that he may have 120 acres altogether."
