Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all

Cherokee main street

  • wcu_picturing-343.jp2
  • W.M. Cline, Co. was established in 1938 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The company was founded by Walter Matson Cline, Jr. (1914-1984) who had learned photography from his father, Walter M. Cline, Sr. (1873-1941). The elder Cline had come to Chattanooga in 1904 and, in 1910, established Cline Studios, producing commercial photographs for newspapers and advertisement. Cline is estimated to have taken more than 75,000 pictures and provided the Community Advertising Association with 3,000 images used to promote Chattanooga. It was W.M. Cline, Jr. who established the company that produced these postcards, many using images made by father and son. After running a black and white operation for several decades, in 1958, Cline opened a color plant that could print 6,000 postcards per hour from more than 30,000 stock negatives. This card is of a view of the main street section in the town of Cherokee.