Let's Go to the Blue Ridge Mountains

The pioneering South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, Southern's earliest predecessor line and one of the first railroads in the United States, was chartered in December 1827 and ran the nation's first regularly scheduled steam-powered passenger train – the wood-burning Best Friend of Charleston – over a six-mile section out of Charleston, South Carolina, on December 25, 1830. Next week I will blog about a post card in my collection that is a picture of a replica of the Best Friend of Charleston. This post card is a picture of a train (no. 11) on its way from here to there on the Southern Railway. The Southern Railway was a US class 1 railroad. It was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894.

It was placed under control of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, along with the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W), in 1982, and was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway in 1990. This train on the post card is passing through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, starting at its southernmost portion in Georgia, then ending northward in Pennsylvania.

I am thinking that it is passing through the state of North Carolina. I base this on the information below that I found on the internet:

Items summarized here:
• "The Warm Springs, Madison County, Western North Carolina," by Howerton, W.H. and Klein, M.C.
• "Asheville--the Ideal Autumn and Winter Resort City," by Southern Railway (U.S.). Passenger Traffic Department
• "Autumn and Winter in the Land of the Sky," by Southern Railway (U.S.). Passenger Traffic Department
Dated from approximately 1880 to 1915, the documents summarized here advertise the beauty and appeal of western North Carolina, which has historically supported a significant tourism industry. Scholar Richard D. Starnes notes that North Carolina, like other Southern states, "offered the scenic landscapes and moderate climate Gilded Age visitors demanded, and entrepreneurs emerged to provide these tourists with accommodations, entertainment, and good southern hospitality". Tourism in western North Carolina flourished in the early nineteenth century, writes scholar Karl A. Campbell in his review of Richard D. Starnes's Creating the Land of the Sky: Tourism and Society in Western North Carolina. Before the Civil War, "the Asheville area already had a reputation as a travel destination," but it was after the War that the area's "healing springs and reputation for a healthy climate, combined with new railroad construction" helped tourism in western North Carolina truly blossom.

The post card is from the White Border Era (1915 - 1930). It was printed by Curt Otto Teich's company for the publisher Southern Post Card Company of Asheville, North Carolina. This would also back up the thought above about the picture being from North Carolina. Here is a close-up of the logo for the publisher:

The publisher has a different post card number (B-266) than the printer. Knowing the printer's number (A-37902) we can know the year that our post card was printed.

There is a chart of the numbers the company used and what year they were printed. The list tells us that numbers A-32236 to A-45599 were printed in 1913. This is just before the beginning of the White Border Era. Curt Teich was quite the innovator so this makes sense to me.

Mount Lowe or Mount Tamalpais?

The next card that came in while I was focused on Pikes Peak is this one from California. I have already written much about Mt. Lowe in previous blogs. I am still fascinated by it. To think that I lived for 14 years below it and the old track scar on the mountains and never knew it... The picture on the front of this card is very similar to several others in my post card collection. The wording of the title on the card is one thing that makes it different from the others. You might be able to notice that the trees in the picture are mostly branches, with very few leaves. I have 5 other post cards with that same picture; they have different words on the front. But, it isn't only the differences on the front that intrigue me.

The back has a lot of content that I want to share with you now. First, I could tell immediately that this post card was printed by Edward H. Mitchell. He has made a unique mark in post card history. He was very prolific in printing the number of post cards that he did. Also, he owned or partly owned so many other post card printing businesses besides his own. I do know that he was born on April 27th in 1867 (his estate included over 3.5 million post cards) in San Francisco, California; he married a fellow San Franciscan in 1891 and he died on October 24th of 1932. He stopped printing post cards in about 1928 when his interests in oil became more important to him. Like the back of this post card, most of the Edward H. Mitchell post cards in my collection have a brownish tinge to the back. The print up the left-hand side of the card is usually the same font and size. It tells us that the post card is made in America by Edw. Mitchell at San Francisco.

This post card was printed by the Edward H. Mitchell company for the Mt. Lowe enterprises. For those who are familiar with the history of the development of Mt. Lowe, you will see by what is in the middle of the scroll that this post card was printed toward the end of the development. It has a picture of the fireplace from the Inn. You can also see that the post mark is from a post office at the top of the mountain.

I love the read the messages on the backs of the post cards. This one absolutely fascinated me. We have just recently blogged about Mt. Tamalpais in northern California; and, when I read this one I see that the author is comparing the trip up and the Inn at the top of Mt. Tamalpais to the trip up and the Inn at the top of Mt. Lowe. In the very hard for me to read script it says in the second and third lines, "not as good a trip as Mt. Tamalpais."

I have been to Mt. Tamalpais and to the San Gabriel mountains around Los Angeles. The views alone would favor Mt. Tamalpais, but there is much more to "Mount Tam" than just the view. I suggest that you do your own research and see which one you would prefer.

A Post Card of a Picture of a Post Card

This is an interesting twist on post card publishing. It is a picture of a post card printed on a post card. The original post card is from the Linen Era, perfected by Curt Otto Teich. In fact, the original post card was printed by Curt's company. In the bottom, right-hand corner the numbered code

tells us that this was printed in 1938 as a Linen Post Card. The 8A informs us that it was printed in the 1930s (the A) and the 8 specifies that it was 1938. The H in the H395 is the clue that this is a Linen post card, known by Curt Teich's company as the "Art Colortone Method".
This post card (not the original) was printed by Applewood Books in Beford, Massachusetts. When I look up Applwood Books on the internet, it says that they are now in Carlisle (about 65 miles north).

From Wikipedia about the train on the front of the post card: The Crusader was a streamlined express train that ran on a 90.3-mile (145.3 km) route from Philadelphia's Reading Terminal to Jersey City's Communipaw Terminal, with a ferry connection to Lower Manhattan. The Reading Railroad provided this service in partnership with the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), in which it was the majority owner of capital stock. Trains operated over CNJ tracks for the 30 miles from Jersey City to Bound Brook and over the Reading System for the 60 miles from Bound Brook to Philadelphia. The train was first operated by the Reading Company as the railroad's premier express. A contest was held to find a name for the new train, offering a $250 (US) cash prize to the winner. The Crusader, the entry of Mr. P. W. Silzer of Plainfield, New Jersey, won the prize, selected by a committee of 29 railroad officials from among 6,086 suggestions. The Crusader '​s first regular run was on December 13, 1937.

Three Related Post Cards (3 of 3)

In the blogs of the last two weeks, I mentioned that as I looked at three post cards I noticed that the writing on the back looked very similar. Sure enough, the post cards are being sent to Miss Reba Van. They were all written on the same journey, by the same author, to the same person. This is about the third, and final, post card in that series.
As the Union Pacific Railroad headed east from Omaha, Nebraska the track laying crews made their way almost straight west across Nebraska and Wyoming then entered into Utah. In Utah they made a southern turn and traveled toward Ogden, Utah on the shore of the Great Salt Lake. To get there they had to lay track through the Echo and Weber (pronounced Weeber) Canyons. Weber Canyon is in the Wasatch Mountain Range. The 40 mile long river is fed by 13 tributaries as it flows west toward the Great Salt Lake.

The Union Pacific built tunnels and bridges through Echo Canyon first; track-laying progressed rapidly down Echo Canyon to Echo City, reaching there on January 15, 1869. Within a week, tracks reached the site of a large tree, 90 feet tall, that happened to be exactly 1,000 miles from Omaha (the corporate seat of the Union Pacific), and soon a sign was hung from the tree clearly stating that fact. The tree was in the middle of a gorge between Henefer in the Upper Weber Valley and Devil's Slide, a unique geological formation of twin limestone ridges running vertically from the canyon floor. Along with the Thousand Mile Tree, Devil's Slide immediately became a sight to be seen by all passing trains.

Three miles west of Devil's Slide, two tunnels designated No.3 and No. 4, were completed, allowing tracks to progress further west through Round Valley to Morgan. Like the delays at Tunnel No. 2, delays at tunnels 3 and 4 forced the construction of short and temporary runaround tracks to speed the progress of track laying, including a curved wooden trestle at Tunnel No. 3 that is said to have followed the course of the river around the tunnel. Quoting Charles Edgar Ames in his excellent 1969 history of the construction of UP's transcontinental line:
"Tunnels 3 and 4 were only three-quarters of a mile apart in the narrowest part of the steep, rock-filled gorge of Weber Canyon, 3 miles west of Devil's Slide. Work was begun in September. Tunnel 3 was 508 feet long on a 3-1/2 degree curve, while Tunnel 4 was 297 feet long on a 4 degree curve. Both were cut through sharp spurs of black limestone and dark blue quartzite. The use of newly invented nitroglycerine greatly expedited the work. Number 4 was finished in January, but longer Number 3 not until April. So, for a few months, trains had to creep dangerously around sharp curves at the edge of the turbulent river."

The view of the completed Tunnel No. 3 and its adjacent bridge over the Weber River was so dramatic that numerous stereographic and hand colored postcards were generated that showed the wooden bridge crossing the Weber River, and the tracks plunging under the rocky crags above the tunnel portal. After the completion ceremony at Promontory, and throughout the following spring and summer, UP construction crews returned to the tunnel sites and various bridge sites to complete the permanent structures and timber linings.

This post card is from the Divided Back Era (1907 - 1915). The number on this post card is A-9090 It was posted from Blue Canyon, California on January 6, 1911. The message is explaining to the reader that the trip through the Sierra Nevada's was beautiful in the height of winter. The post card was published by Barkalow Brothers from Omaha, Nebraska. Hmmmmm.... that is where the Union Pacific Railroad Company is headquartered. I wonder if there is a connection to the picture on the front. Maybe this description will help us to know the answer to that: It is taken from the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York

The Barkalow Brothers, Sidney D. Barkalow and Derrick V. Barkalow, arrived in Omaha from Ohio in 1856. BARKALOW BROS., news agents Union Pacific Rail Road, firm composed of D. V. and S. D. Barkalow, commenced business in 1865. D. V. B. of above firm was born in Warren County, Ohio, February, 1843. In 1856 he removed with his parents to Omaha, Neb. Learned printing and telegraphy, and about 1862 was engaged as operator on the overland telegraph line. S. D. Barkalow of above firm was born in Warren County, Ohio, in 1844; removed to Omaha Neb., with his parents in 1856. At the age of fifteen years he commenced clerking, and at seventeen started in business for himself in book and stationery firm of Barkalow Bros.

They became the exclusive distributors of printed materials, including postcards, for the Union Pacific Railroad. They won won their contract with the U.P. in 1865 and became the exclusive news agents on the trains and in the stations along the line. The Barkalow Brothers also published non railroad oriented view-cards that were often printed by Tom Jones. They eventually became suppliers of hotel gift shops and moved their business to Fort Myers, Florida.