From the Desert to Paradise

Here is another post card promoting the joyous bliss of living in southern California! The title is: "IN CALIFORNIA = 'THE LAND OF SUNSHINE, FRUITS AND FLOWERS". I have to say that in the 17 years that I lived in southern California, I never saw any place like this. Of course, my time in southern California started in 1959; this section of the state might have been developed into housing by the time I got there.

But, I have to admit that I have seen the snow on the mountains, the orange trees with the train track, the pepper trees and the flowers all in southern California. I just never saw them all at the same time. It kind of make me want to go back there to see just where this picture was taken.

When we turn the card over we see that it was published by the Western Publishing & Novelty Co. of Los Angeles. I truly believe that they were some of the most prolific promoters of California (especially southern California) EVER!

I can't tell who printed the card for them... maybe by this time they printed their own. I would place the card in the White Border Era, which lasted from 1915 to 1930 more or less. There is a number in the top middle of the back of the card. I presume it is the order number or the run number. I haven't been able to find many details about the Western Publishing & Novelty Company, but if I did I think that this number A-101318 would give us an excellent idea about the date this card was printed and published.

Not all is orange blossoms

The last couple of posts have been about trains entering southern California through beautiful orange groves. This post card shows what they had to pass through in order to get to the orange groves - the desert. As you can see, the desert is not always a dusty, sandy location with no plant life. This picture was taken in the Spring, when the desert plants were in bloom (probably in late April or early May).
Unfortunately, the post card doesn't name the train, so I don't know exactly where this is. There are several routes that enter southern California through the various deserts.

This post card was printed by Curt Teich. His name is not mentioned on the front or the back. You just have to know these things. The number in the bottom right hand corner of the front of the post card (1A-H405) is the key to the mystery. The A tells us that this post card was printed in the 1930s. The number 1 gets more specific and informs us that it was actually 1931. The H after the dash indicates that the post card was printed using his special "Art Colortone Method", also known as Linen Cards. The texture on the front of the post card makes it look and feel as if it were printed on a linen-type substance. Notice that they kept the white border from the previous era to save on ink costs. In 1931 there were 565 post cards printed by Curt Teich. This is number 405 of that series. 405 is 71.68% of 565. 71.68% of the calendar year falls on September 18th. So this card was printed somewhere near September of 1931.



The card was published by the Western Publishing & Novelty Co. of Los Angeles, California. I don't know a lot about them, except that they were prolific producers of printed materials. The previous post card in this blog posting was also published by them. What I could dig up, I owe to the Metropolitan Post Card Club of New York City: they tell us that the company existed in Southern California from 1932 until the 1970s; and that they were a publisher and distributer of California related tourist materials and postcards.

You Can Trust a Post Card Picture! Can’t you?

Here we are again, passing through an orange grove in Southern California. The previous blog post showed the front of a train; this is what the back of a train looks like. I can imagine all the Easterners coming to Southern California for the first time and, as the train passes through the orange groves to get to Los Angeles, crowding the back platform of the last car to get a better look at the trees laden with fruit! These people seem to have been distracted by the camera in the vehicle right behind them – or are scared stiff, afraid that it will crash into them. They do look rather casual, so this is probably a staged photo, after all. The title on the card doesn’t give us a very good perspective as to where in Southern California these tracks are. It simply says, “The ‘Limited’ passing through the Orange Groves, California.” When I was a kid growing up east of Los Angeles, we actually came across orange groves with train tracks through the middle of them – many times in many locations. We used to go for family car rides on Sundays and sometimes this post card is exactly what we saw, minus the train.

When you turn the card over and read the message on the back, you realize that you can trust a post card picture. The message says, “When travelling on the Limited this is one of the first scenes the tourist gets of Southern California. It is exactly as pictured.” So, there we have it. Someone travelled on “The Limited” into Southern California and verified that the picture on the front can be trusted. Hmmmmm.

The post card was published by the Western Publishing & Novelty Co. Los Angeles, Cal. The Metropolitan Post Card Club of New York City tells us that the company existed in Southern California from 1932 until the 1970s. They were a publisher and distributer of California related tourist materials and postcards.

It was printed by (or the picture was taken by) Theo Sohmer. There is a very long an extremely interesting history of Theo Sohmer written for the South Jersey Post Card Club’s newsletter in October of 2006. I recommend that you read page 3 of the newsletter, which can be found here: http://sjpostcard.com/ARCHIVES/2006PDF/102006/McClintock.pdf
The nutshell version is that Theo Sohmer was a prolific photographer for a newspaper who took pictures of many parts of California and sold his photos to the Western Publishing & Novelty Co. He had so many pictures that he even designed a logo for his copyright. You can see it in the upper left corner of the post card.

Copyright Infringed?

What a Difference a Decade Can Make!

These two post cards look extremely similar.

The titles are even almost the same title. If you look at the clouds in the background they are the same shape. There is a dead tree on the right-hand side of both post cards, too. Even the oranges are growing in the same spots on the trees. I have to admit that I much prefer the top card to the bottom one.

This is a good illustration of how either a) the post card publishers ignored the copyright rules, or b) how one company who owned the copyright sold the same picture to two different publishers. Both of these were common in the early days of post card publishing and selling.

In order to find the answer to this “question” one must turn the post cards over.

When you do, you can see that the top post card was mailed on May 6, 1911 (the clear postmark) and the bottom one was mailed around March 11, 1923 (the hand written date and only the year on the postmark).

The top card was published by the Newman Post Card Co. in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. Founded in 1907, they were a publisher and printer of lithographic postcards, mostly views of southern California, with some cards of Hawaii and Nevada and the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition. They were related to the O. Newman Company. In the 1960s they were purchased by H.S Crocker and so they kind of still exist. It was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company out of Los Angeles. This company was in existence from 1908 to 1921. Knowing the dates of these two companies, we can date this card to between 1907 and 1921. We can, of course, date it even closer because the postmark says May 6, 1911.

The bottom card was published by the M. Kashower Co. of Los Angeles. They existed from 1914 to 1934. These publishers used a variety of printers to produce their comic cards, holiday greetings, and view-cards of southern California. This card, too, was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company. We could do the math to figure out between which years the post card could have been printed, but the postmark tells us it was mailed in 1923.

My conclusion to the question above is that the Van Ornum Company owned the print and sold it first to the Newman Post Card Company then to the M. Kashower Company. Maybe they got around any copyright agreements by changing the title on the front from “Entering Southern California” to simply “Entering California”.

Way Up North - part two

Here is part two of the previous post. This is the post card in my collection that looks just like the picture on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad's website.

This is not a very good scan of the post card. It is a picture of, as is written on the front of the card, "Steel Cantilever Bridge over Dead Horse Gulch". I know that it is on the White Pass and Yukon Railway because the message on the back says, "You'll be glad to hear that we missed the ride on this train - Yukon and White Pass R.R." This confirms for me that the post card in Way Up North - Part One is of this bridge on this railroad.

The post card was printed by Gowan Sutton. They were a publisher of real photo and printed postcards of the Canadian West. Not only did they produce cards depicting large cities, they captured many hard to reach views within the Canadian Territories. Many of their cards were hand tinted in a simple manner striving for style rather than realism, which created cards in vastly differing quality. While the real photo cards were made in Canada their printed cards were made in England. They were in business from 1921 to 1960 in Vancouver.

Way Up North - part one

The front of this post card is titled: "SERVICE OF THE NORTHLAND, ALTIN, B.C." While searching for "Altin" I found nothing, but another town showed up: Atlin, British Columbia. I followed my instincts and found that the name of the post card is misspelled.

Atlin is an existing small isolated community in the NW corner of British Columbia, on the traditional lands of the Taku River Tlingits. Glacial-fed Atlin Lake is 4 miles wide and 85 miles long, in a wide wilderness valley surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Atlin is a 2 to 3 hour drive from Whitehorse Yukon or Skagway Alaska. Current population is 300 to 500 full-time residents. During the Klondyke Gold Rush of 1898, the population was 10,000! Many buildings from that era still exist. Though Mining and Tourism underpin the economy of Atlin, there is a large and very influential number of artists, artisans and authors in this very special little-known community. This information was taken from the website of the town: discoveratlin.com If you draw a straight line between Whitehorse in Yukon and Juneau in Alaska, Atlin is at the half-way point and a few kilometers east of the line. Atlin was founded in 1898 after European explorers Fritz Miller and Kenny McLaren discovered gold nearby in Pine Creek. The White Pass and Yukon Railway Company recognized Atlin's potential as a tourist destination and promoted the town to the fullest.

I also found that Atlin had at least three railway companies named after it:

The Atlin Railway Company was incorporated in 1914 and went from Atlin to a point on the US boundary at Taku River.

The Atlin Short Line Railway and Navigation Company was incorporated in 1899 to build from Taku Arm, Cassiar District, along the valley of Atlintoo River, on the north side of the river, to near where the Atlintoo River leaves Atlin Lake. The company was dissolved by the Defunct Railway Companies Act of 1926-27.

The Atlin Southern Railway Company was also incorporated in 1899 to build from Log Cabin, on the White Pass to the Taku Arm of Taglish Lake, from the entrance of Atlintoo River into Taglish Lake and from Atlin City to Telegraph Creek,with branches.The company was also dissolved by the Defunct Railway Companies Act of 1926-27.

In my searching I also found a picture on the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad's website (wpyr.com). The bridge on that card looks extremely like the bridge on this post card. So I am concluding that this train belonged to the original White Pass and Yukon Railway. My next step was to look at my collection of train post cards and see if I could corroborate the story with some other kind of "proof". I am posting that picture today in a second post because the blogging site's program is having trouble doing what I want it to in this blog posting. So, take a look at Way Up North - part two.

In the upper right hand corner of the back of this post card, where the stamp usually goes, the letters AZO are printed four times to make the square for the stamp placement. In each corner of this square are four other squares. This tells us that this is a Kodak paper called AZO and was used between 1926 and the 1940s.

This paper and development process was suitable for making contact prints, rather than enlargements for which the source of light would be much weaker.

Because of the destiny of the three railways mentioned above, I have a tendency to date this card into the late 1920s.

Take a look at the second half of this post...