Smile!

Have you ever been at a tourist attraction or activity and someone from the amusement park or the company hosting the activity takes your picture? I remember being at an amusement park (although I can’t remember which one) and as we came over the top of the roller coaster type of mechanism (perhaps a log ride somewhere) they took our picture. I have also been rafting in Jasper National Park in Canada and someone on the side of the road took our picture. When we returned to the rafting company store, or when we got off the ride our pictures were there on display for us to purchase.

The people riding the cable car up The Mount Lowe Incline had this same opportunity. This post card is a picture at the bottom of The Incline. To the left in the picture you can see the trolley cars that brought passenger to the bottom of the incline from Pasadena and Los Angeles. Obviously, in the middle is the incline itself, 3000 feet of it. At the bottom of the incline is a cable car full of people. They are lined up properly, one above the other and next to each other. There is a person standing next to the car facing downhill. The passengers are facing backwards so that they can see the beautiful valley over which they are about to ascend. But, they are also looking directly into the camera that is about to take their picture. You can’t see it very well on the scan, so in this second view of the same card I have put a little arrow in orange. It is pointing to the camera and to the photographer. He is dressed in a brown suit with the professional felt hat on his head.

This next view, is from my camera. I used it to take a picture of the post card while I zoomed in on the bottom where the man stands. Here you can clearly see the man hard at work.

This card is published by M. Rieder of Los Angeles. I think that, if you have read my previous few blogs, you have heard enough about M. Rieder. What I want to point out to you today is the logo in the top, middle of the card. I have posted about it before. I want to know what it means and where it comes from. I know that the eagle is a symbol of Germany and that M. Rieder had their cards printed in Dresden, Germany. I wonder if the EKC in the middle, where the bird’s feet should be, are the initials of the printer in Germany?? Meanwhile, this card is from pre-March 1, 1907. There is only allowance for the address on the back of the card. Any message will have to be squeezed onto the front of the card, where the photographer can record it for posterity.

San Gabriel Valley

This card is a good example of why people went to Mt. Lowe’s attractions.

Echo Mountain is right in the middle of the card. It is a white blotch on this card but it represents the powerhouse, a Chalet, the Echo Mountain House, casino, the observatory, residential car barn, gardens, gas holder, zoo and water system. This is where the incline railway would take people after travelling to the foot of it in Rubio Canyon. People could go there a couple of thousand feet above sea level to see the beautiful San Gabriel Valley sprawled out before them and to escape the heat of the summer. It was opened all year round, but I am thinking that most people went there in the summer. You can see that the valley was still pretty much agricultural (all the green on the card) with a city here and there. Pasadena could be at the bottom right of the card just over the mountain scene. And, there is city on the right edge of the card halfway up the side. Notice the lack of smog or smoke trapped in the valley. This was taken in the early 1900s and probably in the spring when the air is still clear (I believe that they still have days like that today). You may notice that there are train tracks in the mountains. There are more cards to come to explain this phenomenon.

This card was also published by M. Rieder. However, it says the company is in Los Angeles and the card was made in Germany. The last card had the company in both LA and Dresden. The company was in Los Angeles from 1901 to 1915. This card is from the pre-March 1, 1907 era also. The right 3/4s of the card are for the address and the postmark only. On the left of the card the sender was allowed to write his or her address and as the card says: “(NO OTHER WRITING)”

A Piece of Southern California Train History

Los Angeles is surrounded by mountains. These mountains are part of the reason that there is so much smog in the valleys. I remember as kid driving up to Crystal Lake. On the way down we stopped at a lookout point. We were above the smog. Looking out all we could see was the top of the smog with hills popping up out of it looking like islands. We have also been up there looking out over the valleys when it was so clear that we could see Catalina Island. We were not the first people to think that going up into the mountains on a hot summer day would be a good idea. In fact, a person named Thaddeus Lowe thought it was a very good idea back in the late 1800s. His idea was to build a “tourist trap” at the top of the mountain to draw people up to enjoy themselves, each other and the view. It was called Echo Mountain and the "tourist trap" was called Echo Mountain House.What is known today as Mt. Lowe was once Oak Mountain. "Mount Lowe located above Pasadena, California is part of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California. It was originally named Oak Mountain, but was renamed for Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, who built the Mount Lowe Railway to its foot in 1896. The record of the naming was made official by Andrew McNally, the famous Chicago map printer, who promised to print "Mount Lowe" on all his maps," (see http://www.mtlowe.net/) We are going to be vising the Mt. Lowe Railway through post cards in the next few blog posts. What we will be seeing was opened on the 4th of July in 1893 and made its last run on December 5th of 1937 – a 44 and a half year run. But look at what they accomplished in that short time span! Mr. Lowe only owned the railway for a short 8 years. He had to sell it to Henry Huntington of the Pacific Electric Railway.

In 1889, David MacPherson, a former Santa Fe Railway civil engineer, planned a steam powered railroad into the mountains behind Pasadena. In 1891, MacPherson and Thaddeus Lowe, a public figure from the Civil War, incorporated the Pasadena and Mt. Wilson Railway. Land near Mt. Wilson was unavailable, so Lowe ran electic trolley cars through Altadena into Rubio Canyon. At the terminus, Lowe built a pavilion transfer station and "The Great Incline" (see: http://www.mtlowe.net/brief_history.htm) I am beginning with this post card because it shows the mountain so clearly. The title in red under the picture says that it is a view of “Mt. Lowe Div. Pacific Electric Ry., California” You won’t be able to see it on this scan, but there is a large white building on the knob to the right of the hill where this incline leads. The incline is about 3000 feet long. Echo Mountain House is where everyone is headed. Mr. Lowe and company built a powerhouse, a Chalet, the Echo Mountain House, a casino (used as a dance pavilion and dormitory), an observatory, residential car barn, gardens, gas holder, zoo and water system. "The White City on the Mountain" was world famous. [see http://www.mtlowe.net/brief_history.htm] for more details. In its later years, the Mt. Lowe Railway will add an Alpine Tavern on a wicked set of tracks farther into the mountains. The tracks and the tavern will be featured in later posts.

This post card is from the pre-March 7, 1907 era. The entire space for a message is at the bottom of the front of the card. Max has made the best of it and told his “mother and folks” that “The ride up Mt. Lowe is most beautiful and enjoyed it very much.” He wrote this card on my older brother’s birthday 45 years before he was born. It was mailed the next day, August 23rd, in 1906. This year the card turns 112 years old. The card was published by M. Rieder of Los Angeles and Dresden. Dresden is a city in Germany. In these days the postcard printers in Germany were more experienced and produced better cards than those in the United States. So, many companies relied on their German counterparts to produce the post cards that they sold. This is a black and white card and the Germans excelled at the color post card production. We will see some of those in the near future in these blogs about Mt. Lowe. M. Rieder Company existed in Los Angeles from 1901 to 1915. They mostly published post cards of scenes from the western U.S. [see http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersr1.html] for more details. They contracted their printing work out to Germany and the famous and prolific post card publisher from California, Edward H. Mitchell. An interesting little note: the words POST CARD are prominent on the top, middle of the back of the card. They have “translated” those words into POSTAL CARD and CARTE POSTALE just below in parenthesis. Max wrote this to his family who lived at 1616 East 68 Street, in Chicago, IL. I looked it up on the internet. They lived close to the Illinois-Indiana border just east of where interstates 90 and 94 come together today. If they live there today, they are a 12 block walk to the South Shore Cultural Centre.

The Tehachapi Loop

The Tehachapi Loop is a spiral loop through the Tehachapi Pass in the Tehachapi Mountains. More specifically it is located in southern California. The line connects Mojave in the Antelope Valley to Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley on the other side of the mountains. The purpose of the loop is to reduce the grade of line. Once on the loop a train loses (or gains – depending on the direction of travel) 77 feet of elevation over almost three quarters of a mile. This makes it a safe 2% grade. Construction of the line and the loop began on November 8, 1874 and finished on September 5, 1876. The first train to use the brand new loop arrived at Los Angeles from San Francisco. It has been in heavy use ever since. In the summer of 1952 an earthquake shut down the Tehachapi Loop until repairs could be made. Today, the Union Pacific does not allow passenger trains to use the Tehachapi Loop.

The fun part of the loop is that the track crosses over itself, so that if a train in long enough, about 3,900 feet, it one can see the engine and the end of the train at the same time, one on top of the other. If you would like to experience this phenomenon yourself the Tehachapi Loop is at co-ordinates Latitude: 35°12′03″N and Longitude: 118°32′13″. This is a partial quote from the commemorative plaque at a stop where you can watch the trains go round: “In front of you is the world famous Tehachapi Loop which is about halfway upgrade to the Tehachapi Pass. This steep line averages 2.2% in gradient in its 28 miles of length. This feat of civil engineering genius was the crowning achievement of civil engineer William Hood of the Southern Pacific Railway Company. It is one of the seven wonders of the railroad world.” Many post cards have been made of this event. I have this older post card and a much more modern card. This post card has a train drawn in on the loop. It is the orange streak in the middle of the card. I am not sure who printed the card, but it was published by the M. Kashower Co. of Los Angeles, CA. It is from the white border era (1915 – 1930). I blogged about a card last month: also from M. Kashower, also from southern California. It was the train passing through orange groves.

Their company logo was on the back of that card as it is on the back of this post card. BUT, the logo has changed. This is the earlier logo, because the previous card was from the linen card (1930 – 1945) era. That logo was a bear (California symbol) in a circle with an M on our left and a K on our right hand side. This is an angel (symbol of Los Angeles) in the circle facing to our left and holding something (maybe a torch) in its right hand. The words M. Kashower Company are on the top, inside of the circle and Los Angeles, Cal are on the bottom, inside of the circle.

Through the Beautiful Desert

This post card is also in California. It is a picture of the back side of a train headed into California. Did you know that from many directions you have to cross a desert to get into California, especially if you take the Southern Pacific or Santa Fe routes?

They do not tell us which railroad this is a picture of but I don’t believe that either railroad ran green passenger cars. This is probably a case of “poetic license” on the part of the printer. The post card is part of the push for tourists to California so one can notice that even the desert is a beautifully blooming paradise as you travel through it. Having grown up in Arizona and California, I can attest that the desert does indeed bloom into beautiful colors. I find it amazing that someone was able to capture it on film with all of the plants blooming at the exact same time! This is probably some more “poetic license”. The card is a linen card (1930 to 1945 approx.). It was published by the company we have mentioned several times connected to the tourist trade: the Western Publishing and Novelty Co. out of Los Angeles. However, this time they have not teamed up with Theo Sohmer as the printer. They have gone straight to the company that invented the “linen post card”, the Curt Teich Company.

There is no indication on the back that his was printed by Curt Otto Tiech, but on the front at the bottom right hand corner there is a code: 1A-H405. The 1A tells us that it was printed in 1931. The A stands for the 1930s and the 1 tells us it is 1931. 405 is the printer order for that year. This was the 405th print run in 1931. The H just after the dash is the indicator that this was printed using the copyrighted Art Colortone Method, also known as the “linen cards”.

I turn 101 years old today!!

Today we are celebrating a post card that turns 101 years old (according to its postmark) on this very date.

This card seems to be part of an advertising campaign by the Southern California Tourist Agency. It probably isn’t, but it certainly highlights the attitude that people had about Southern California. The description of the scene on the top of the card says, “Entering Southern California, through Orange groves, in mid-winter”. I love that fact that they are combining Southern California with orange groves. I have actually seen train tracks through the orange groves. We moved to Southern California in 1959 and for a family outing would drive randomly through the state near our home. The part that really impresses me is the addition of “in mid-winter”. There is no snow to be seen; the grass is green; the orange trees are full of fruit. This card was published in the divided back era (1907 – 1915). It sure would have impressed the people back east to see something like this in the middle of a winter blizzard. The post card was published by the Newman Post Card Company. The company was begun in 1907 in Los Angeles. It lasted until it was purchased by the H.S. Crocker Company in the 1960s. The focus of the pictures on their cards was the Southern California area, although they printed pictures from other western points, too. They also took advantage of the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition (held in San Francisco) to produce post cards. The Newman Post Card Company logo is in the top left on the back of the card.

It was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company also out of Los Angeles. Their logo is between the words POST and CARD on the back. They only lasted from 1908 to the 1921. They printed tinted half-tone post cards. On the very bottom, left of the back of the post card it says, “On the Road of a Thousand Wonders”. I have a few cards with this theme. The Road of a Thousand Wonders was theme that the Southern Pacific Railroad gave to the routes from Southern California to Portland, Oregon. The invested in and supported the printed of post cards that depicted the various scenes on these routes. The post cards were used by the railroad to increase passenger volume because the people who received these cards had to come out west and see for themselves. Some of them stayed once they saw how beautiful it really was.