YESTERYEAR: Peerless Laundry by Pat Sides
The photograph was taken shortly after Peerless Laundry’s expanding business relocated from Main Street to a new facility at Eighth and Oak streets in 1914. The tedious chore of cleaning in washtubs at home was giving way to the modern, large-scale technology provided by such professional laundries as Peerless. In 1919, a newspaper reported that more than a hundred “girls†were employed at the laundry; some of them are pictured here on the second floor, which contained the drying, ironing, and finishing rooms. The building, later occupied by the Swanson-Nunn Electric Company, was recently razed.
