A Visit to California

This post is about a fascinating train route in southern California. It took people from Pasadena to the top of Mt. Lowe between the years of 1893 and 1936 - just over 40 years.

The card at the top of this stack is what piqued me interest in this series of post cards. Look at the construction of that car!! I now have 57 cards in my collection and it is still growing. The amazing this is that I lived for over 20 years in the San Gabriel Valley near where this railroad operated; yet, until I started collecting these cars, I had never heard of this railroad. Mt. Lowe was named after Thaddeus Lowe, whose money built the Mount Lowe Railway. The original name of the mountain was Oak Mountain but a cartographer started naming it Mount Lowe on all his maps and, with the name of the railroad calling it Mt. Lowe, the name changed. This is interesting because the original route that Professor Lowe wanted to follow would have taken the traveler to what is today called Mt. Wilson. You can learn an awful lot about the history of Mt. Lowe Railway’s development by just typing in “Mt. Lowe Railway history” in your web browser. The second card shows Horse Shoe Curve; the first leg of the journey on Mt. Lowe took the passenger from Pasadena, through Altadena to Rubio Canyon. The passenger then transferred to “The Great Incline” (in the next set of post cards) and travelled up to the Observatory and the Tavern that awaited to cool off the hot traveler in the cooler high altitudes with shade from oak trees. The third card shows two things: one, it does snow in southern California and second, the train operated even in winter. The tavern had a very large fire place to keep winter travelers warm.

Back to my interest in the first card: sometimes businesses purchased postcards and used them to advertise their wares. This one is one of the very few in my collection that does just that. It is a fruit company that wants to sell 24 cans of fruit for $4.75. This is happening before March 1, 1907. One can tell by the appearance of the back of the card without the advertising. M. Rieder, the publisher of the postcard, was in business from 1901 to 1915 so this card is from somewhere between 1901 and 1907. The backs of these cards are shown for those who are interested. They range in dates from pre-March 1, 1907 to August 23, 1930 – only 6 more years left in the life of the railroad.

These next two cards show two more aspects of the railway. The one on the left shows one of the later developments in the railroad. It is called the Granite Gate on the Alpine Extension. The builders had to dynamite through granite to make this opening for the car. You can see that the construction of the car is similar to the one in the first post card.

The handwritten date on the card is November of 1904. It was never mailed, but, you can see that it is from pre-March 1, 1907. The second card was mailed on August 23, 1906. It was written on my older brother’s birthday, the day before but almost 50 years before he was born. It shows “The Great Incline”. Parked under the station is the car that brings the passengers up this far.

The last card shows one of the reasons why people flocked to the Mt. Lowe Railway. It is a scene from in front of the Alpine Tavern.