What is it like at the top?

These two cards are pictures of what it was like at the top of Pikes Peak in the early 1900s. The train company that took the passengers to the top of the mountain was the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railroad. It is indicated as the "M & PP R.R." on the back of the tender of the engine. One can see how a simple weather observation building has become a "tourist trap" by looking at the set of buildings and the observation tower. The ruggedness is still very clear as indicated by the rocks and boulders in the picture.

These two card are part of a series. We have seen their "siblings" in earlier posts like two weeks ago. The top post card is part of the embossed series of cards. The bottom one looks like it was simply copied from the first one - including the word "Copyrighted".
Both are from the Undivided Back Era (1901 - 1907). I am beginning to wonder if the same publisher is printing two sets of series of cards. The words on the backs of these cards (and cards series previously posted on this blog) use the same font style and size. They are just two different colors. It could be that the publisher found it cheaper not to emboss the post cards moving forward and so went back to the beginning of the series and reprinted all the cards without the embossing. One the other hand, the publisher wanted to publish two price ranges of cards and so embossed one set and left the other set flat.

The postmarks on the back of the top card tell us that this card was mailed from Burlington, Colorado on July 26, 1906 at 5:00 PM and it arrived in Omaha, Nebraska on July 27th at 10 AM. That post card traveled over 400 miles overnight. The postal system was efficient back then!!