Myrtle Bank terrace, Natchez, Mississippi, ca. 1900, from the Stewart Photograph Collection,* via Mississippi Department of Archives and History Commons on flickr (both photos).
The two houses shown here are about two blocks from each other, both on N. Pearl Street.
The neighborhood evidently had good water pressure. Both houses still stand.
In ancient Greece, the first hoses (for fire fighting) were made from ox intestines. In the late 17th century, Jan van der Heiden and his son sewed leather into long tubes for Amsterdam’s fire department. Then, in 1821 Boston, James Boyd invented a rubber-lined, cotton-webbed hose. By the 1870s, the first rubber and cotton fiber hoses for gardeners appeared on the market.
In 1895, a garden hose was the subject of what is believed to be the first comedy film, L’Arroseur Arrosé, by Louis Lumière. You can see it here.
*By brothers Robert Livingston Stewart and William Percy Stewart of Natchez, Mississippi, from ca. 1890 to ca. 1905.
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