Mastodon Wannabe?

I have chosen this post card for today’s blog because it is related to last week’s. Last week I posted several pictures of the Mastodon Ferry that was used to take trains from one side of the Mississippi River to the other.

If you look carefully at the picture on this post card, you will notice that it looks strangely similar to the Mastodon! The bridge is a steel structure with a wooden shed on top. It stretches up and over the train on board. There is a platform at about 45 degrees from the deck down to the water. The name is pained it white near the front of the ferry.

As I admired the card I saw the wording at the bottom: “FERRY CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AT AVONDALE, LA.” I recalled that Avondale near the west side of the Huey P Long bridge that leads into New Orleans. I thought for sure that I had another post card of the Mastodon.

Then I looked carefully at the name on the ferry. It says, “El Grande”. So I did some research.

Here is my conclusion: This is the Mastodon.

As I turned the card over, I saw that it was printed by the Detroit Publishing Co.

This post card is from the 1915 – 1930 White Border Era. Trademarks were just starting to become “sacred” among post card publishers. So, I think the Detroit Publishing Co. had a copy of a picture from another company and decided to make it their own. In fact, on the back it says, “MADE ONLY BY…” Well, the only reason that this card can only be made by the Detroit Publishing Company is because they are the only company that can rename the Mastodon and print it.

I found the exact same card for sale on E-Bay. It was post marked and dated for 1915.

The Mastodon

I have three more post cards of a water craft carrying a train. It is the “Mastodon”

barge that was used by the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) to ferry trains across the Mississippi River just up river from New Orleans.
So far, my research has told me that the barge was around between 1910 and 1930, but it could have been built long before that because the SP went all the way to New Orleans. In 1892, they proposed the building of a bridge across the Mississippi to facilitate their trains crossing the river. Unfortunately, a depression hit the United States and put a stop to that idea.
So, from about 1910 to the mid-1930s the SP ran the trains across the Mississippi on the Mastodon, the Southern Pacific Railroad's ferryboat, powered by tugboats. The barge took the Sunset Limited passenger train across the Mississippi River from the SPRR dock at Elmira Street (in what is today referred to as Avondale) to the Elysian Fields terminal on the New Orleans side.

It was a journey of about ½ mile.
The barge operated close to 10 miles up-river of New Orleans. The area where it operated is close to 2.5 to 3 miles west of the current Huey P. Long bridge. The Huey P. Long bridge was built in the mid-1930s and it incorporated both rail and vehicular traffic. This would have quickly ended the career of the Mastodon.
Today, this bridge is a huge railfan location and one can find post cards of trains crossing on the Huey P. Long bridge just like there are post cards of the trains crossing on the Mastodon.

Unfortunately, when I turn the post cards over, I can find no information about the publishers or the printers of these cards. On the front of the top post card, there is a number in the bottom right hand corner. It is 617-7. If I knew more about the personalities of each publisher or printer, I could tell you who published this card. I do know that it is from the Divided Back Era, so it is from March 1, 1907 to 1915, more or less. This corroborates the guestimate above, which I picked up from the University of Texas files of pictures of the Mastodon. The middle picture gives us no hints about the printer or publisher on the front, but there is a number at the bottom middle of the card: R-53960. I know that Curt Teich used a similar numbering system for one set of the cards he printed. I believe that it was E. C. Kropp from Milwaukee used a very similar system. The bottom post card has the number 104 in white on the bottom left of the front of the card. It is the only card that also includes the now familiar description of the front of the card on the back upper left corner. However, none of this helps me to identify the printer or publisher of this post card. Alas, I can only sit back and admire their handiwork.

As Big as a County

I have four post cards of the same train ferry. Three of them look awfully similar to each other. The other one is independent of these cards. The post cards are pictures of the train ferry “Solano”. Until its sister ship, the “Contra Costa”, was built it was the largest train ferry in the world. The two of them carried train traffic from Benicia (the third capital city of California from February 4, 1853 to February 25, 1854) and Port Costa in California (a trip that was perhaps less than two miles). It is a body of water known as the Carquinez Strait on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay where the Sacramento River empties into the Bay. Today, the former ferry route is framed by Solano County on the north, Contra Costa County on the south, Interstate 80 on the west and Interstate 680 on the east.

Although you can’t see it in these post cards, the “Solano” was a double side wheel paddleboat. It was constructed, owned and operated by the Central Pacific Railroad to ferry trains on the transcontinental line (it was on this route that the golden spike was driven in Utah on May 10, 1869) to and from the San Francisco Bay Area. In the bottom post card of this set, it says that the ferry is carrying the Overland Limited from Point Costa (it is actually Port Costa) to Benicia (the train is headed east).
Once the transcontinental railroad reached the sea level ferry crossing at Benicia, it was moved onto the “Solano” to be transported across the strait to Port Costa.

The “Solano”, which was built in 1878 in Oakland, California, was named for the county in which Benicia sits. It was 424 feet (129 m) long and 116 feet (35 m) wide and was capable of carrying entire passenger trains or a 48-car freight train and locomotive. It was in service from 1879 to 1930.
By 1927, the “Solano” had reached its maximum capacity. On May 31, 1928 the Southern Pacific, successor to the Central Pacific in operations of the ferry, authorized construction of a railroad bridge from Benicia to Martinez just east of Port Costa. The railroad bridge opened in November 1930 and continues to serve the Union Pacific and Amtrak railroads.

Following the opening of the railroad bridge, most of the “Solano” was dismantled and sold for scrap. However, what does remain of the “Solano” can be seen today where it was scuttled to create a breakwater in the San Joaquin River near Antioch, California east of its old route. This video on youtube will take you on a tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zfo_GlXpjE

The top picture is on a post card published by the Souvenir Publishing Company of San Francisco. I do not know much about the history of the company. The appearance of the back makes me think that Edward H. Mitchell had something to do with printing. I can’t guarantee it, though. We can tell that it was published before 1915. In the upper left-hand corner of the card is a seal advertising the upcoming Pan-Pacific International Exposition to be held in San Francisco in 1915. It is a divided back card, so it was printed between 1907 and 1915. I know absolutely nothing about the printer or publisher of the bottom card! I have several that have that scroll design around the words POST CARD, but I cannot find any information about who used it.

The top post card of this set was published by Richard Behrandt, an importer and wholesaler of toys, novelties, stereo-views, greetings and postcards. Behrendt published a wide variety of postcard types under his own name including view-cards of the West Coast and the San Francisco Earthquake. His office was at 711 Mission Street in San Francisco from 1906 to 1930. This post card was sent to France on January 22, 1919.

This bottom post card has a very distinctive logo in the top middle of the card. Despite that, I can find no information about the publisher of this care, either. It, too, is a divided back card, so it is from between 1907 and 1915.

Do You Have Prince Albert in a Canyon?

No. We don’t. Because the name "Albert" comes not from Prince Albert, as was common in the period, but for Albert Rogers, nephew of Major Rogers, the discoverer of the pass.

The words on the front of this post card say, "The Observation Platform at Albert Canyon".

Albert Canyon was a railway-based village in the Rogers Pass area of British Columbia, Canada,

based around a hot spring known as Canyon Hot Springs and also a "pusher" station for pass-climbing engines of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

This post card is the result of Gowan, Sutton Company of Vancouver, British Columbia. The company began in 1921 and lasted until 1960. 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.

This, as you can see was a made in Canada real photo card. The stamp on the top back of the card is a giveaway to this fact, too.