Besides the obvious lack of progress so far in 1907,  I like this photo because it shows you just a sampling of what the East Side looked like at the Elk River.  Much rolling land and swampy is how most describe it.  It's also funny to think that there were small farms and houses sitting right where Kanawha Blvd runs today.

ALSO, AS AN ADDED BIT OF HISTORY:

The Ohio Central Railroad was completed to West Charleston in February, 1883, but it was not until November 19, 1884, that it crossed Elk river.

The bridge was built and ready to admit of trains passing over sometime before, but the citizens of Charleston, seeing that it would be inconvenient as well as annoying to have the road run into the town where it proposed to, sued for an injunction, restraining the track from being laid, and work was stopped for awhile.

But Colonel Sharpe, receiver of the road, determined not to be outwitted, got everything in readiness and on the night of the 18th of November, 1884, when the injunction was dissolved, built the road through the city to Capitol street, and the good denizens awoke to the sound of the whistle and ringing of the bell of the first locomotive that ever entered the immediate confines of the city of Charleston.