What a Difference Four Years Can Make!

I hope that you have all had a hangover-less beginning to the NEW YEAR!! These two post cards are pictures of the trolleys that traversed the Circular Bridge.

The title at the top of this post card says, “119 – Circular Bridge, Mt. Lowe Railway, California”. It is a picture of Trolley Number 9. If you look at the blog from December 28th, you will see that this was an improvement over the rather primitive trolleys that were first used on the Mt. Lowe. This trolley has an enclosed front on it and a slight bit of a roof, too. Comparing the backgrounds of the two cards leads to some interesting findings. The scar on the hillside is still there – this is the railway line that the trolley is following. However, the Echo Mountain House and all the other buildings have disappeared! The valley, too, has changed. It is all very neatly and symmetrically arranged into little rectangles of what looks like groves of trees. Also, a new hill has developed behind the hill where the Incline used to end at the top of Echo Mountain. Now let’s bring the bottom card into the picture. It is a photo of Trolley Number 121. You can see the major differences among the three types of trolleys. This one has fully enclosed sides with a full roof including fringes and a bell! You can see that the Mt. Lowe Railway is fully owned by the Pacific Electric Railway now. The buildings on the top of Echo Mountain have reappeared and the valley below is more settled with houses than with orchards. That new hill from the post card on tope has gone back to where it came from. The title at the top of this post card also says, “119 – Circular Bridge, Mt. Lowe Railway, California”. Can you imagine using the same title on two post cards as different as these two? Let us look at the backs and see if we can find out something about who might have a hand in this. The postmark on the top card is from September 2, 1909. The postmark on the bottom card is from April 7, 1913. They were posted three years and seven months from each other. Both of them, though, were published by the same company. Edward H. Mitchell of San Francisco had a hand in bringing both of these cards to market. It looks like he kept the same number and titles and just updated the pictures. The Pacific Electric Railway took control of the Mt. Lowe Railway (from the Los Angeles Railway Company) in 1902. It, in turn, was sold to the Southern Pacific Railway in 1911. These are very old pictures. But, the backs hold more interesting information.

The first post card has a message to Laura Beaton of Columbus, Ohio. It is correcting some information sent in a letter by the same writer the day before. In the first letter the writer (it is signed “with love from the Moneys) must have told Laura that Mr. Stewart had lived in Columbus for 20 years when, in reality, he had only visited there three years prior and had dinner with Miss Pelin. Then the writer adds that they Money family is thinking of going up Mt. Lowe in the very near future, after they visit Long Beach, California the next day. The message on the bottom post card is a friend writing to George Cramer asking how the farming is coming along and inquiring about his new bay colt. George is from Mapleton, Minnesota, just southwest of Minneapolis - St. Paul. The postmark on the bottom post card is beginning to advertise the fact that San Francisco is going to host the World’s Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915. If you have been to San Francisco, you can still see buildings that were used during the Exposition.