By John Chambless

Staff Writer

There's plenty of history in plain sight in downtown Oxford, a town that retains many of its storefronts and landmarks from the 1800s.

Free walking tours of downtown Oxford will be held on Aug. 14 beginning at 5:30 p.m. and continuing to depart until about 7 p.m. The one-hour tours are being sponsored by The Chester County Board of Commissioners through the Chester County Planning Commission, the Chester County Historical Society, the Chester County Historic Preservation Network, and the Chester County Conference and Visitors Bureau.

The “Town Tours and Village Walks” series began on June 12 and will continue through Aug. 21 throughout the county. Last year, more than 2,000 people enjoyed the tours. The program is endorsed by Preservation Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Last week, outfitted with a camera and a copy of “Southern Chester County in Vintage Postcards” by Martha Carson-Gentry and Paul Rodebaugh (1999, Arcadia Publishing), I set out to see if the places in these old postcards are still standing. Here's what I found.