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.