Large ornate verandahs and imposing multi-tiered power poles tower over the country street.
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Everyone is wearing hats as the horse and carts amble across the wide road.
There was no parking congestion for cars when this image of Summer Street was taken in 1913.
It is one of about 500 black and white and colour images contained in the long-awaited third book by Orange author Robert Bartlett launched this week.
Orange and District A History in Pictures 2 follows Mr Bartlett’s similar works in 1994 and 1999 that offer many previously unpublished images of work, social life, sports and the arts.
“I’ve been collecting photos since I was a teenager,” he said.
“I really started putting it together in January. There are 520 images in there.”
Their albums were basically thrown out and I bought them as a kid.
- Robert Bartlett, author
Mr Bartlett said the images spanned about 100 years from the 1860s when Orange was in its infancy to the 1960s and 1970s when it had established itself as a city.
He said a lot of the photographs had come from the collections of photographers who travelled from city to city taking images of buildings and then selling them to the locals.
“There is also a lot from the early photographers who were the first photographers in Orange. They lived here.”
Mr Bartlett said he had also bought photos and family albums from various sources.
“They’ve come from private family collections and some I’ve dug out years ago.
“I’ve found albums in second hand shops.
“Their albums were basically thrown out and I bought them as a kid.”
Mr Bartlett said his personal collection of historic Orange photos now extended into “a couple of thousand” images.
He said he intended to eventually give them to “an institution that will look after them.
“Everyone will have access to them,” he said.
The book has a print run of 1000 copies and Mr Bartlett said there would not be a second run.
With pre-orders and strong sales at the book launch at the Orange City Library on Tuesday night 300 have already been sold.
Mr Bartlett said he hoped the launch would also encourage people who had historic photographs of Orange to come forward and not throw them out because there were gaps in our history.
“You wonder what’s been lost over the years,” he said.
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