I spent the afternoon yesterday with one of my very best friends, and it reminded me of a group of photos I recently found. The girls above were students at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee in the early 1920s. There was an entire photo album, but the seller had split the pages apart, keeping some of them for herself. What the pictures show is a tight-knit group of young women, not just getting an education, but having the time of their lives. They hiked, swam, went to parties, flirted, played tennis, and just hung out together. All the photos are labeled, and a group of friends emerges: Ruth, Gert, Mae and Eva.
According to the captions, the girls were taking a “hike around the Loop.” I’m not familiar with Maryville, but it seems as though the Loop is still there, a path of just over a mile. The girls happened upon a big plie of sawdust that was just begging to be climbed, and so you can guess what happened next:
The Vintage Traveler 