Coming Back to Life (sort of)

Some interesting things have come together in this post card. First, and best, it is a post card of the Lucin Cut-off. I have about 50 cards of the trestle and this is one of them; you have seen a few more in my earlier posts. I like this one because it looks so textured, even though it isn’t. The printer has added smudges of very light brown (okay beige) in the clouds and on the Great Salt Lake. They give the impression that it is a textured print because the pixels in the brown smudge are so far apart from each other. The train is headed east (shadow location) and one can clearly see that there are 6 people on the platform of the final coach. The steam is coming out of the engine way in front and the air seems to be coming out of the brake hose (invented in 1869) in the back. The wording at the bottom of the card states that this is the “Lucin Cut-Off, Great Salt Lake, Utah (On Southern Pacific)”.

On the back of the card we see that it was printed in Great Britain but published in the USA by the Pacific Novelty Company (PNC) of San Francisco. The PNC was one of three companies that were owned in whole or in part by Edward H. Mitchell (April 27, 1867 to October 24, 1932). Most of his postcards depicted scenes of the western United States. He was very creative and imaginative when it came to deciding what pictures would be on the front of his post cards. He produced an extremely high volume of cards, which had great color for the era in which they were printed. Besides his own company he was also invested in the Pacific Novelty Co. and the Souvenir Publishing Co. He travelled all over the west by train finding subjects for his cards, of which railroads and trains were a drop in the bucket. My next series of blogs should be about his exaggerated produce cards. I have many! Also on the back of the card is half of a conversation between Vera and her friend Sylvia. Sylvia used to live in Berkeley, California near Vera. She has recently moved all the way to Oakland, California – a huge move of less than 5 miles. This card was mailed on August 31, 1909. In those days there were gaps between the houses in the cities of Berkeley and Oakland and no freeway. I typed in the Oakland address on the computer and this picture appeared:

I typed in the Berkeley address and this picture appeared:

Vera is asking her old friend, Sylvia, if she has Monday off. If she does, does she want to go to the theater? The card was mailed on Tuesday, August 31st and Vera wants an answer about next Monday (Labor Day which began in 1894). The post card is to go from Berkeley to Oakland and back in less than a week. She is also telling Sylvia that she has a new steady job; it is with the phone company and it is not in the “hello” department and Smithy didn’t get it for her, either. The “French kid” is in Reno, Nevada and the Henry girl moved next door to where Sylvia used to live (the picture above) so why doesn’t Sylvia move back and they will have filled in the block. This post card is almost 103 years old. It has preserved a simple conversation between friends and brought them back to “life” for a short while today. And, I have met them today because Vera chose to use a postcard published by a company from across the bay, to send to her friend in Oakland just up the road.