Step back in time to everyday life in every US state in 1925

100 years ago today

The year 1925 fell right in the middle of the Roaring Twenties, a decade that brought increasing freedoms but also restrictions. Flappers were challenging societal norms and pushing for equality, while Prohibition agents were dismantling speakeasies and illegal stills.

Read on to witness the celebrations, tragedies, and realities of everyday life in your state in this most monumental year...

Alabama: Wilson Dam nears completion

Wilson Dam spans 4,541 feet across the Tennessee River between Florence and Muscle Shoals. It was built to power nitrate plants creating explosives for World War I, but the war ended before its first turbine span. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1925, when this photo was taken, that the dam finally ground into action.

Its construction did have one important consequence, though. The reservoir it created finally buried Muscle Shoals, a series of irregular-shaped rocks that made the river treacherous and unnavigable, opening the waterway to steamboats and barges.

Alaska: Dog sled passing Mount McKinley

In 1925, dog sleds were the primary mode of transportation during the Alaskan winter. Here we see a dog team making its way across the icy landscape in front of Mount McKinley (also known as Denali) that very year.

January 1925 also saw the famous 'serum run' to the isolated Alaskan settlement of Nome. The town was gripped by a deadly outbreak of diphtheria, and a relay of dog teams transported vials of life-saving medicine 674 miles through blizzard conditions in just over 127 hours without so much as a single broken vial.

Arizona: A Native American looking out over the Grand Canyon

Here we see a Native American seated on the edge of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, gazing out across the majestic landscape. When this photo was taken around 1925, the region was inhabited by various native tribes including the Havasupai, Hualapai, and Hopi.

When Grand Canyon National Park was established in 1919 it almost completely swallowed up the Havasupai Reservation. It wasn’t until the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act. passed by Congress in 1975, that over 185,000 acres of land was finally returned to them.

Arkansas: Cotton workers

Cotton remains a big industry in Arkansas, with the state’s output ranking third behind only Texas and Georgia. Today, the industry is highly mechanized, but when this photo was taken in 1925 it relied heavily on tenant farmers to produce and harvest the crop.

A typical Arkansas cotton tenant at this time rented 40 acres from a landowner, farmed with his own mules, and used his family as labor, giving his landlord roughly a quarter of the crop. If a sharecropper relied on landlord-supplied equipment and capital, the costs were higher, and he did little more than survive.

California: Ballerinas on Santa Monica beach

Albertina Rasch, seen here in the dark swimsuit, was an Austrian-born dancer and choreographer whose dance troupes lit up Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in the 1920s and 1930s. Here we see Rasch rehearsing with her ballerinas on Santa Monica beach in 1925.

On piano is the Academy Award-winning film composer, Dimitri Tiomkin, a Russian Jewish émigré who married Rasch a year or two after this photo was taken.

Colorado: Students outside Rose Hill School

Here we see a moment frozen in time – the students and teachers at a small school on the western edge of the Colorado plains, just 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver, in 1925.

Less than 20 years later it would be swallowed up by the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, established by the US Army in 1942 to produce chemical weapons used in World War II. Today the rehabilitated site is a national wildlife refuge and home to over 330 species of flora and fauna.

Connecticut: Cedar Hill Railway Yard

When this photo was taken of the Cedar Hill Railway Yard in North Haven in 1925, it was probably the biggest railway yard on the East Coast and among the largest in the country. At its peak during World War II, it was handling more than 5,000 railroad cars each day.

By 1961, however, the yard's proprietors were facing bankruptcy, and it was soon abandoned. Parts of its rusting infrastructure can be still seen today, and are a popular selfie spot on the walking trails that crisscross the woods and marshes beside this stretch of the Quinnipiac River.

Delaware: Rehoboth Avenue Bridge

The Lewes & Rehoboth Canal in Rehoboth Beach was built in the early 20th century to provide an easy way for commercial and recreational boaters to travel from Delaware Bay to Rehoboth Bay. In the process it cut off the Delaware Route 1A, and in 1925 a drawbridge (pictured) was built to allow motorists to cross.

Known as the Rehoboth Avenue Bridge, the structure was considered a notable example of 1920s bridge architecture and remained the second oldest bascule bridge in Delaware until it was demolished in 1985.

Florida: Parking on Daytona Beach

Driving on Daytona Beach has always been a popular activity. The wide-open beach with its hard-packed sand serves naturally as a road, and, as seen in this photo taken in 1925, a parking lot as well. It was also a popular venue for land speed record attempts.

Just two years after this photo was taken Henry Segrave set a world record speed of 203.79 miles per hour on the beach, which he then broke again in 1929 with a speed of 231.446 miles per hour.

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Georgia: The Macon floods

Days of record rainfall in southern Georgia in January 1925 saw many rivers in the region burst their banks and flood nearby settlements. Two canoeists were swept away in Albany, where the Flint River rose to 32.8 feet, the highest level on record at that point.

Another town badly hit was Macon, seen here after the Ocmulgee River rose to 27.1 feet. Houses were submerged and train tracks destroyed after flood waters from swollen tributaries overwhelmed the town’s defenses.

Hawaii: Surfing at Waikiki Beach

Hawaiians have always surfed, but it wasn’t until the growth of tourism to the islands at the beginning of the 20th century that the sport’s popularity exponentially grew. Visitors were mesmerized by the sight of locals seemingly walking on water, and wanted to try it for themselves.

The gentle, long waves of Waikiki, created by the shallow waters and off-shore reef, were perfect for beginners. And for local surfers to perform tricks, like this man here, seen surfing on his head at Waikiki in 1925.

Idaho: Covered wagon rolls through farmland

In the 1920s, the face of transportation in Idaho was changing. Highways were being built, motorized vehicles were becoming more common, and the railway was an increasingly convenient way to get from A to B. However, as this photo taken in 1925 shows, horse-drawn covered wagons were still being used, mainly for traveling short distances or for transporting livestock.

Illinois: Navigating a snowstorm in Chicago

Horse-drawn wagons were still being used in America’s major cities too, especially during bad weather. Here we see a man driving a wagon on the sidewalk in front of the Art Institute of Chicago during a snowstorm in January 1925. The snowstorms weren’t particularly bad that winter, but horse-drawn vehicles were still the most sure-footed way through town.

Indiana: Tri-State Tornado hits Princeton

The Tri-State Tornado that tore through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925, was the deadliest on record, killing 695 and leveling entire towns. Here we see a homeowner surveying the aftermath of the tornado in Princeton, Indiana. All he had left was his piano – overturned, but too heavy for the winds to carry away.

Iowa: Bank robbery radio

Alarmed by an increase in bank robberies and the impact it was having on insurance costs, the Iowa Bankers Association (IBA) hit upon a novel approach to stem the tide. In 1924 they partnered with the Des Moines radio station WHO to alert police to bank robberies in progress.

In this 1925 photo, the WHO operator is about to toll the alarm that would cause a white light to flash in specially constructed receiving sets in police stations across the city.

Kansas: Hobo Day at Kansas University

Hobo Day was a Kansas University tradition that saw students dress up as hobos the day before homecoming. "Old clothes, the older the better, plenty of paint, burnt cork, and... a corn-cob pipe" were the main essentials, according to the university student newspaper.

This photo shows the winners of the 'best hobo' competition in 1925. This yearly festival of rags was eventually banned in 1939, not because it was demeaning but because it gave students an excuse to cut classes, destroy property, and cause all kinds of trouble.

Kentucky: Floyd Collins gets trapped in Sand Cave

In the mid-1920s, cave tourism was a lucrative and competitive business, with experienced spelunkers like Kentucky local Floyd Collins (pictured) always searching for new caves. In early 1925, he became trapped in Sand Cave, a new cave he was exploring near Mammoth Cave.

A rock had pinned his ankle, trapping him 55 feet underground and sparking a highly-publicized rescue attempt that gripped the nation. Despite engineers, cavers, and geologists working around the clock for 17 days, Collins tragically passed just before rescuers reached him.

Louisiana: New Orleans Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras parades are held in New Orleans from Twelfth Night on January 6 to Fat Tuesday, and are what locals call "the greatest free show on Earth." They follow a format that dates back to 1857, when an organization called the Mistick Krewe of Comus debuted the concept of a structured public parade. Here we see the 1925 parade passing by viewing stands on St Charles Avenue, in front of Gallier Hall.

Maine: Lumber mill

Logging in Maine can be traced back to the early 1600s when English explorers started cutting trees on Monhegan Island. In 1634 a water-powered sawmill was built at South Berwick, and by 1832 Bangor was the largest shipping port for lumber in the world.

When this photo of a lumber mill in Maine was taken in 1925, the industry was about to go through another transition. The failure and liquidation of the St John Lumber Company in that same year and its subsequent purchase by Edouard Lacroix would usher in a new era of mechanization.

Maryland: Prohibition agents seize an illicit still

In 1925, Prohibition was in full swing, enshrined in the 18th Amendment and enforced by the Volstead Act. It hadn’t stopped Americans drinking though, and by the mid-1920s it's estimated that there were more speakeasies than there had been bars when Prohibition was introduced in 1919.

For Prohibition agents tasked with cracking down on moonshining, it was a thankless and losing battle, despite some successes like the seizure of this 2000-gallon illicit still near Waldorf in Maryland in 1925.

Massachusetts: Flappers on the beach

The Roaring Twenties saw young women throw off the strictures of society and embrace a new, more liberated lifestyle. They became known as 'flappers,' and their rejection of social norms paved the way for greater gender equality.

Flappers could be distinguished by their loose-fitting clothes and bobbed hair. Here we see two young flappers showing off their modern style along the Massachusetts shore around 1925 – tame, by today’s standard, but shocking back then.

Michigan: Projectionist at Capitol Theatre, Detroit

Detroit's Capitol Theatre was one of the USA’s first movie palaces – a theater and concert venue renowned for its opulence and grandeur. Designed by C Howard Crane and opened in 1922, it quickly became a cultural landmark in the city.

This photo of the Capitol Theatre’s projection room displays the equipment needed at the time – equipment that would soon become more complex and sophisticated with the emergence of 'talkies,' movies where audiences could actually hear the actors speak.

Minnesota: Boys scouts at Square Lake summer camp

Summer camp has been a rite of passage for young Americans ever since the 19th century, when the first camps were established. They offered the chance to experience the great outdoors and pick up useful life skills at the same time.

Here we see boy scouts doing calisthenics at their camp beside Square Lake in Minnesota. Activities would doubtless have included canoeing and archery as well.

Mississippi: Sharecroppers

The end of slavery brought sweeping changes to Mississippi and the rest of the South. Crops still needed to be harvested so the concept of sharecropping was devised. Landowners provided land to ex-slaves in exchange for 30-50% of the crop they produced. The system heavily favored landowners.

High interest rates on supplies and unfair contracts saw many formerly enslaved people trapped in debt and poverty, as seen in this photo of sharecroppers in Mississippi in 1925.

Missouri: Charles Lindbergh dislocates his shoulder in St Louis

This incredible photo captures the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh, standing next to a doctor – or possibly Orville Wright – after dislocating his shoulder at Lambert Field in St Louis, Missouri, in June 1925. Lindbergh had been spin testing a plane, testing its stall characteristics and recovery procedures.

When the aircraft got into difficulty he was forced to eject, dislocating his shoulder as he parachuted to the ground.

Montana: Photographing Blackfoot Glacier

Here we see a photographer in Glacier National Park in Montana, setting up his bulky equipment to take a photo of Blackfoot Glacier in 1925. It was the second biggest glacier in the park after Harrison Glacier. Shortly after this photo was taken the Blackfoot Glacier retreated rapidly and by the late 1920s had fragmented into two separate glaciers, Blackfoot and Jackson.

Nebraska: Local family with their corn harvest

In the 1920s corn was the most widely planted crop in Nebraska. Planted in spring and harvested in fall, it was still being picked by hand and sold as a cash crop or used as animal feed. Freshly picked corn was kept in corn cribs, often beside a farmhouse, as seen in this picture taken in Nebraska around 1925.

A mother holds her baby while the corn harvest dries, waiting to be sold on or milled.

Nevada: Early Las Vegas

Originally founded as a trading stop between Los Angeles and New Mexico, the arrival of the railway in 1905 saw Las Vegas develop as a dusty railroad and rancher town, seen here in 1925. Just six years later, Las Vegas would be transformed again.

Construction of the nearby Hoover Dam led to a population boom, while the legalization of gambling in Nevada saw casinos and showgirl clubs begin popping up on Fremont Street, the only paved road in town.

New Hampshire: Hazing at Dartmouth College

Here we see what appears to be a hazing prank at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1925. A freshman is dressed up in a silly devil costume, perhaps as part of his initiation into a fraternity or specific academic society.

The decades before World War II saw a spike in hazing and incidents involving violence, binge drinking, and public humiliation. It continues to this day, despite institutions like Dartmouth College prohibiting the practice.

New Jersey: Promenading on the Atlantic City boardwalk

America’s boardwalks have always been places to be seen, none more so than Atlantic City’s famous 5.5-mile wooden walkway – the world’s first and the USA’s longest. This young lady certainly cut a dashing figure in 1925 as she took her bulldog for a walk, resplendent in her knickerbockers and two-tone shoes.

New Mexico: Artists commune in Taos

Taos in north-central New Mexico inadvertently became an artist colony in 1898 when artists Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips were waylaid by a broken wagon wheel. They decided to stay and went on to co-found the Taos Society of Artists in 1915.

Soon other artists came to Taos, drawn by the magnificent mountain light. Here we see the famous Finnish artist, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and his wife Mary in Taos in 1925. The couple returned to Europe just a year later, and in 1931 Akseli died of pneumonia in Stockholm.

New York: Cooling off

While the summer of 1925 wasn’t a notably hot one, that didn’t stop the children of New York City cooling down in fun and innovative ways. Indeed, a newsreel from that same year showed children being hosed down in the heat, with a polar bear at the zoo getting the same treatment.

Fire hydrants were also popular, and this photo shows that the children of NYC weren’t averse to hijacking one of the city’s water trucks either.

North Carolina: A soybean farmer compares crops

Here we see a soybean farmer from Transylvania County showing off his crops. The soybean plant on the left was grown in ground treated with lime, while the plant on the right was not. Lime was used in this part of North Carolina to neutralize the acid in the soil to reduce toxicity and increase yields. As we can see in this 1925 photo, it clearly worked.

North Dakota: Portrait of a Sioux man

Here we see a portrait of a Sioux man smoking a pipe in North Dakota, captured by photographer Frank Fiske. The photo was taken just one year after President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924.

The president took a great interest in the plight of Native Americans, inviting representatives of various tribes, including the Sioux, to the White House. He also claimed in his autobiography that he himself had a "marked trace of Indian blood," handed down from his father’s side of the family.

Ohio: Cincinnati swimmers

As we can see from this snap of a group of bathers, taken on a beach beside the Ohio River in Cincinnati, swimsuits were still rather modest by today’s standards. When this photo was taken, however, such swimsuits were regarded as risqué, especially when compared to the Victorian-era outfits common up to that point.

The carefree way the men and women are mingling is indicative of changing social mores too.

Oklahoma: Turner Falls gas station

In the 1920s, Turner Falls in the Arbuckle Mountains just south of Davis was a popular Oklahoma beauty spot. Pleasure seekers would flock from miles around to take a dip in the clear refreshing waters.

More often than not they’d fill up their vehicles at the local gas station, seen here around 1925. The station was known for its bronze 'Palacine Indian' statue, named after the Palacine Oil Company, which was sadly melted down as part of the war effort during World War II.

Oregon: Bank robber booty

Here we see three uniformed police officers posing behind a table loaded with money, weapons, and narcotics recaptured after a bank robbery in Harney County sometime around 1925. The man on the left is the sheriff, Glen Martin. Bank robberies were still a regular occurrence in the 1920s, not just in Oregon but across the United States.

Pennsylvania: Zeppelin Tourist Camp

The Zeppelin Tourist Camp was a roadside diner in the shape of a zeppelin on the Lincoln Highway in Jennerstown, near Pittsburgh. It was built in the early 1920s and measured 60 feet long. By the 1950s the diner's popularity had declined, and it was sold to a buyer near Deerfield, Ohio, who used it variously as a diner, a motel office, a private residence, and, finally, as a storage building for a towing company.

Rhode Island: Newport dog show

During the fabled Gilded Age, the seaside resort of Newport in Rhode Island was known for its lavish pet parties and dog-related social events. It was a tradition continued, in a certain manner, by the annual Rhode Island Dog Show, held at Freebody Park.

This photo was taken at the 1925 dog show. Mr AC Gilbert from New Haven, Connecticut, is seen with his dogs, Alf Von Tallensettal and Irma Von Schaillhain, the two prize winners in the police dog class.

South Carolina: The SS Cotopaxi mysteriously disappears

The SS Cotopaxi was a steam-powered freighter that vanished on November 29, 1925, while en route to Havana, Cuba, with a cargo of coal. It had recently left Charleston, and speculation was rife that it had been lost forever, swallowed by the notorious Bermuda Triangle.

The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind added fuel to the fire when it was released in 1977, by speculating that the ship had been snatched by aliens. Both theories were debunked in 2020 when the wreck of the Cotopaxi was discovered 35 miles off St Augustine in Florida.

South Dakota: Miniature Mount Rushmore

Here we see sculptor Gutzon Borglum in Rise Studio in Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1925. He's working on a model of the memorial that would soon be carved into the side of Mount Rushmore, surrounded by the staggering beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Borglum chose to feature George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, as he felt they represented the birth, growth, development, and preservation of the United States and its ideals.

Tennessee: Heatwave sees trials held outdoors

During the summer of 1925, rising temperatures both inside and outside the Dayton county courthouse meant that the trial of local high school teacher John T Scopes had to be moved outside.

Scopes was on trial for teaching his students the theory of evolution in violation of state law, and the case quickly became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial. Scopes readily admitted the offense, so was convicted and fined $100. Much to the chagrin of the prosecutor, the proceedings helped bring the scientific evidence for evolution into the public sphere.

Texas: Blackie Russell at Rodeo Del Rio

This photo, taken in 1925 by the esteemed rodeo photographer Ralph R Doubleday, captures the exciting moment that cowboy Blackie Russell (left) wrestles a steer to the ground during the 11th annual Rodeo Del Rio in Texas. An annual rodeo is held in the town to this day, usually over the Independence Day weekend in the Val Verde Fairground.

Utah: Governor Dern signs a proclamation with a branding iron

George H Dern served as Utah’s state governor between 1925 and 1933 and was an adept self-promotor. Here we see him on August 19, 1925, using a branding iron to sign an official proclamation inviting the state of Utah to the Annual Frontier Round-Up. The unusual proclamation was written on the hide of a wild range steer, with Miss Oenone Dalley, a Utah State Fair cowgirl, acting as a witness.

Vermont: Thanksgiving turkeys

The Pilgrims may not actually have eaten turkey at the first Thanksgiving, but that hasn’t stopped the bird from becoming the centerpiece of America’s favorite family meal. That's mainly out of abundance, it has to be said, as some experts estimate that there were at least 10 million turkeys in America at the time of first European contact.

Here we see some of the 1,200 turkeys being raised on a farm owned by Milton Tabor in Vermont in 1925. Fine-looking birds, each and every one of them, and worthy of the spotlight on any Thanksgiving table.

Virginia: Canoeing at Arlington Park Beach

Arlington Beach and Amusement Park opened on May 30, 1923, and quickly became a popular spot, with crowds of up to 12,000 on the hottest summer days. There were rides and an open-air dance pavilion, but the main draw was the white sandy beach from which visitors could swim in the Potomac River.

Or hire a canoe, like these young people snapped around 1925. Sadly, just four years later, the park was closed. The land was bought by the nearby Hoover Field airport and added to its landing field.

Washington: Loggers on an ancient cedar trunk

Here we see a group of loggers sitting five abreast on the stump of a giant western red cedar they’d just cut down near Deming in Washington State in 1925. These mighty trees grow up to 150 feet, measure about 19 feet in diameter, and can live for 1,400 years or more. Washington’s oldest living red cedar today can be found on the Olympic Peninsula. It is believed to be 1,000 years old and goes by the name of Duncan.

West Virginia: Martinsburg from above

Settled in 1732, ravaged by the Civil War, and then resurrected with the reopening of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the West Virginian town of Martinsburg has had a checkered history. Here we see an aerial shot of the town in 1925 when the city was one of the fastest-growing in the state. Today Martinsburg remains a major regional hub for commerce and transportation in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.

Wisconsin: Welcome to Circus City

Baraboo in Wisconsin is a circus town – the place where the Ringling Brothers first threw up a big tent in 1884, and today home to Circus World, a hub for circus lovers from across the globe. The city was already something of a pilgrimage spot for circus troupes in the early 20th century. Here we see the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus posing for a photo in 1925, as their season in the fabled circus city began.

Wyoming: Sheep grazing near Teapot Dome

In the early 1920s the drilling rights to the wild Teapot Dome Reserve in Wyoming were secretly granted to the Mammoth Oil Company by the then-secretary of the interior, Albert Bacon Fall. But when it was revealed that Fall had received a bribe of $200,000 after the signing of the lease, it was promptly canceled.

When this photo was taken in 1925 the area should have been bristling with oil rigs, but instead the sheep were left to graze the prairie grasses in peace.

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