No one who milked cows as a child, as I did, will fail to recognize DeLaval. Together with a company called Surge, they had a duopoly--or close to it--on the milking machine market. It looks as if Karo Syrup is also in the advertising game, just below the hardware folks.

Lovely postcard circa 1912 which shows the second story verandah in all its glory. Found here.

The fact that the two gentlemen would sooner pose under a plank of wood that is definitely about to fall off and hit them rather than pull the plank off and then pose tells me just how slow the pace of things must be in a small town like that. There's something admirable about the relaxed attitude of a couple of men who know that they have already paid their dues in life and they can simply leave it to the next guy. That's how I want to be when I retire.

It made me glad to see that this quiet street of businesses remains relatively unchanged all these 65 years later. That can be said about so little of my own San Diego, CA, where land values are astronomical.

This picture reminds me of my uncles. Mom had 9 brothers raised on a farm in Manitoba. Not one made it off the farm with all his fingers intact. Looks like the fella on the left might have had the same fate.

to the winner of the location, I bet myself there would not be an answer to this particular location (not much to go on here), but foiled again by astute Shorpy fans.

I love the smiles on these old boys' faces, made more subtle by the fact that one has a cigarette holder and the other a pipe in his mouth. No scolding grandchildren, no hotel staff asking them kindly to step away from the entrances, nothing to pollute the unalloyed joy of a simple smoke.

Now someone help decipher the black sign on the right side of the street. Looks like SC??? Might mean anything, but I'm pretty sure the bottom two words are "on tap" which would imply a beer brand.

[Here's a slightly different version. -tterrace]

The porch still exists on the front of the old Friendship Hotel in Friendship, Wisconsin.

http://www.alfalaval.com/about-us/our-company/history-of-alfa-laval/

This is Route 13 (Main Street) in Friendship, Wisconsin. Very distinctive view of the north end of "downtown". Many of the original buildings have survived.

How about Hogan and Son(s) Hardware, agents for De Laval (farming and dairy machinery).

There was a Hoban & Sons Hardware in Waukegan. Jack and William Hoban were two names I turned up as having owned it in the 1910s.

That's all I can find. Anyone with any knowledge of the area think that "mountain" is feasible that close to the lake?