Mith, Rufus W.

[Business][Land Sales] S Commercial Realtor's Listing Photo Album

South Bend, Indiana: circa 1938. Full limp leather bound with rivets. 32 pages with 76 black and white photographs hing mounted, several to a page, vertically overlapping. Most photos measure 2¾” x 4 ½” and most are captioned in small typescripts that are scotch taped to the pages. Album very good with moderate wear and scuffing; internally near fine or better. A working realtor's album highlighting his listings in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. His highlights may not have been entirely accurate as we note that a commercial realtor named Rufus W. Smith in South Bend, Indiana was found in 1933 to be engaged in the sale of real estate without a license while participating in a fraudulent land deal. One listing is for a huge mixed use building that contained 22 apartments, 12 stores and four offices. The photographs for this and another commercial building provide fantastic street level views with lots of business signage. The book also has several listings for farms, including one with 304 acres and a windmill (pictured) as well as another with “contented cows. ”Some of the typescripts are captions for the photos, but a couple list all the relevant building data including square footage and a detailed estimate of expenses possible net income. Two of these have perforated carbon copies underneath that Smith could hand to an interested party. An interesting artifact of small-town land deals during the Depression. Item #967

Price: $250.00