The Early Bird Gets the Snow

This picture shows the first train of the year to go to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado.

To quote the back of the post card, “Each spring, in order to open the road, it is necessary to cut through the huge snow banks as shown in the picture. The snow is taken out in large blocks, loaded onto cars and dumped down the mountain side at some convenient place. While these huge snow banks disappear with the summer sun, there is perpetual snow near the summit.”

This post card was published by a tourist attraction (the Balanced Rock)

just up the road from Pikes Peak in the Garden of the Gods. It is a public park located in Colorado Springs. From Wikipedia: In August of 1859, two surveyors who helped to set up Colorado City explored the site. One of the surveyors, M. S. Beach, suggested that it would be a "capital place for a beer garden." His companion, the young Rufus Cable, awestruck by the impressive rock formations, exclaimed, "Beer Garden! Why it is a fit place for the gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods."

In 1879, Charles Elliott Perkins, a friend of William Jackson Palmer, purchased 480 acres of land that included a portion of the present Garden of the Gods. Upon Perkin’s death, his family gave the land to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909, with the provision that it would be a free public park. Palmer had owned the Rock Ledge Ranch and upon his death it was donated to the city. It was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1971

The post card is from the White Border Era (1915 – 1930). The white border helped the printing companies to save money on ink by not having to print right to the edge of the post cards. This one was printed by the E. C. Kropp Company, a publisher and printer that began producing chromolithographic souvenir cards and private mailing cards in 1898 under the name Kropp. These cards were of much higher quality than those that would be printed under the E.C. Kropp name. They became the E.C. Kropp Company in 1907 and produced large numbers of national view-cards and other subjects. Their latter linen cards had a noticeably fine grain. The company was sold to L.L. Cook in 1956 and they are now part of the GAF Corp. U.S.