Where the Heck is Ashtabula?

This post card shows a train crossing the bridge (not the bridge in the story immediately following) over the Ashtabula River at Ashtabula, Ohio, a city in Ohio northeast of Cleveland. The name Ashtabula comes from ashtepihele, which means 'always enough fish to be shared around' in the Lenape language. (You can find out more about the Lanape Indians here: www.lenapelifeways.org)
It was a major location on the Underground Railroad in the middle 19th century. There is an article about one of the houses in Ashtabula at this website: www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/oh8.htm

It was also the sight of the Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster. This was a derailment caused by the failure of a bridge (not the one pictured in the post card, and not this railroad company) over the Ashtabula River about 1,000 feet from the railroad station.

On December 29, 1876, at about 7:30 pm, two locomotives hauling, in tandem, 11 railcars of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway carrying 159 passengers plunged into the river in deep snow when the bridge gave way beneath them. The wooden cars were set alight by their heating stoves. The accident killed ninety-two people and was the worst rail accident in the U.S. until the Great Train Wreck of 1918. The coroner's report found that the bridge, designed by the railroad company president (William Henry Vanderbilt), had been improperly designed and inadequately inspected. As a result of the accident a hospital was built in the town and a federal system set up to formally investigate fatal railroad accidents.

The train travelling across the bridge belonged to the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, more commonly known as The Nickel Plate Road. It existed from 1881 to 1964, when it was absorbed into the Norfolk Western Railroad, just before it was merged into the Norfolk Southern Railroad in 1982. Numerous legends have grown about when and how the name "Nickel Plate" was first applied. The accepted version is that it appeared first in an article in the Norwalk, Ohio, Chronicle of March 10, 1881. On that date the Chronicle reported the arrival of a party of engineers to make a survey for the "great New York and St. Louis double track, nickel plated railroad." Later, while attempting to induce the company to build the line through Norwalk instead of Bellevue, Ohio, the Chronicle again referred to the road as "nickel plated" - a term regarded as indicative of the project's glittering prospects and substantial financial backing. In 1882, the Nickel Plate recognized F.R. Loomis, owner and editor of the Norwalk Chronicle, as originator of the term and issued him Complimentary Pass No. 1. Thus Norwalk named the road - but Bellevue finally got it. The preceding came from Wikipedia.

The post card was printed by one of my favorite post card printers. This man and his company were innovative and prolific in the production of post cards. I have written about Curt Otto Teich a few times in the past blogs. The best description is in the blog dated November 13, 2012. I go into quite a bit of detail about him and his company. The Curt Teich logo on this post card appears here to the bottom right of these words:

The number on the post card is R-90907. It appears just above the P in POST CARD. Given what we know about his numbering system, this would place the printing of this post card in the first quarter of the year 1918. He used the R or an A with a number from 1 to 124180 between the years 1908 to 1922. Using a bit of mathematics we arrive at the time line above for the printing of this particular post card. It also places the printing of the post card in the White Border Era; so, I feel good dating the card about 1918 or thereabouts.

The post card was published by Harry H. Hamm of Toledo, Ohio - the other side of the state from Ashtabula. I could not find anything about Harry Hamm of Toledo, Ohio, but the Metropolitan Postcard Club shows us that there was a Harry Harmm of Erie, Pennsylvania. Here is the great logo that appeared on the cards he printed from Erie.

He published from there in the years 1907 - 1923. I wonder out loud if he didn't have a branch office in Toledo... This post card is from the White Border Era (1915 - 1930). It is quite possible that he moved from Erie to Toledo for the last seven years of this era, too. This is the logo that the Harry H. Hamm of Toledo used on his post cards.

I think I prefer the creativity and fun in the first logo!!

Modern Card / Past Event

At almost precisely 5:12 a.m., local time, a foreshock occurred with sufficient force to be felt widely throughout the San Francisco Bay area. The great earthquake broke loose some 20 to 25 seconds later, with an epicenter near San Francisco. Violent shocks punctuated the strong shaking which lasted some 45 to 60 seconds. The earthquake was felt from southern Oregon to south of Los Angeles and inland as far as central Nevada. The California earthquake of April 18, 1906 ranks as one of the most significant earthquakes of all time. Today, its importance comes more from the wealth of scientific knowledge derived from it than from its sheer size. Rupturing the northernmost 296 miles (477 kilometers) of the San Andreas fault from northwest of San Juan Bautista to the triple junction at Cape Mendocino, the earthquake confounded contemporary geologists with its large, horizontal displacements and great rupture length. Indeed, the significance of the fault and recognition of its large cumulative offset would not be fully appreciated until the advent of plate tectonics more than half a century later. Analysis of the 1906 displacements and strain in the surrounding crust led Reid (1910) to formulate his elastic-rebound theory of the earthquake source, which remains today the principal model of the earthquake cycle.

I learned this from Wikipedia about the company that owned the train lying on its side in the picture on the post card as well as about the engine itself. “The North Pacific Coast Railroad was a common carrier 3 ft narrow gauge steam railroad begun in 1874. It operated in the northern California counties of Marin and Sonoma. The trains carried redwood lumber, local dairy and agricultural products, express and passengers. The NPC operated almost 93 mi of track that extended from a pier at Sausalito (which connected the line via ferry to San Francisco) and operated northwest to Duncans Mills and the Cazadero . The NPC became the North Shore Railroad on March 7, 1902. In 1907 the North Shore Railroad became part of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad.” Regarding the engine, it was built by the Brooks Locomotive Works as a 4-4-0 classification engine in 1891; so it was about 15 years old when the earthquake hit. When the Railroad changed hands in 1907, it was re-numbered (so they were able to save it!) to #92.

This, of course, led me to the history of the Brooks Locomotive Works on Wikipedia: When the New York and Erie Railroad (NY&E) relocated its shops facilities from Dunkirk, New York, to Buffalo in 1869, Dunkirk lost its largest employer. Coming to the city's rescue was Horatio G. Brooks (1828–1887), the former chief engineer of the NY&E who was at the controls of the first train into Dunkirk in 1851. In 1869, Brooks leased the Dunkirk shops facility from the NY&E and formed the Brooks Locomotive Works. The 1890s brought another period of depressed sales following another financial crisis. The company produced 226 new locomotives in 1891, but only 90 new locomotives in 1894. Brooks was not able to recover business as easily and the company was merged with several other manufacturers in 1901 to form the American Locomotive Company.

This is all that is left of the railroad:

I found this about Point Reyes Station, where the picture on this post card was taken. “Along Main Street, which is A Street, is also Highway 1 but is marked as Shoreline Highway, most of the north-facing facades date to the railroad era. The architecture is vaguely Italianate-- many of the early town fathers were Northern Italian immigrants or Italian speaking Swiss. The most imposing edifice is the brick Grandi Building, built in 1915. Although empty now, it once housed a grand hotel, ballroom, and general store. Down the street, the wood-sided Point Reyes Emporium (1898) survived the 20th Century beautifully. The railroad switching yard occupied the facing area. Here, once standard gauge rails were laid from Sausalito, loads had to be shifted to and from the narrow gauge cars that still ran north up to the Russian River. Ultimately, the old depot was turned and moved and is now the post office. The old engine house stands too; it's the burnt-red structure a block off the highway from the gas station.” This was taken from the website: http://www.pointreyes.org/pointreyes-marin-county.html

The post card is actually from the Modern Era. There is a date on the back that tells us that this post card was printed after 1990 by the Inverness Foundation. It was published by the Jack Mason Museum in Inverness, California. You can go their website here: http://www.jackmasonmuseum.org/about.html but you will have to cut and paste the address into your internet search engine.

Bringing Home the Memories!

I have to ask if this is a real train or not. It is a picture, which is posted below, of a scale model of what looks like a Southern Pacific design of a diesel engine pulling a passenger consist. The train pulls passengers around the property of this hotel:

I grew up just a few blocks from this hotel. We passed it often when visiting an aunt in Scottsdale, when going to Papago Park, or when going up or down Van Buren for one reason or another.
When the Ramada Inn at 3801 East Van Buren installed a streetcar trolley to deliver guests to their rooms, the HiWay House at 3148 East Van Buren, which advertised itself as the "King-Sized Playground of the Southwest," invested in a large-scaled train. They named it the Arizona Pacific Railroad and it pulled its visitors of all ages on a locomotive tour of the grounds as seen on this map of the hotel.

And what grounds. HiWay House was an extreme example of the frenzied competition among Van Buren Street motels.
The hotel was a Del Webb Construction Company project and Van Buren's largest hotel complex; besides its private locomotive and passenger consist, the HiWay House Hotel had its own business complex and convention center. In December of 1956 the “Web Spinner”, an internal communications tool of the Del Webb Construction Company, the HiWay House is mentioned as still being under construction. In the November of 1956 issue it was mentioned as being scheduled for opening in December of 1956. I am not sure exactly when it opened its doors, but it was shortly before the picture on the post card posted below.

The trains were not inexpensive. At a time when a new Chevrolet was $2200, the average house $18,000 and average annual wage $5500, Webb paid $13,700 for each of the Arizona trains FOB North Tonawanda, New York. Rail, ties, ballast, other track components, crossing signals and labor brought the overall cost of each railroad to close to $20,000 - and he already owned the land.

The hotel had two engines that pulled the train: the one shown in this post card

and a replica of a steam locomotive. At the time, the public had an insatiable appetite for the American Western. Seven of the top ten TV shows and eleven of the top twenty were westerns. Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun will Travel, The Rifleman, Maverick, Tales of Wells Fargo and Wyatt Earp were all in the top ten most popular shows on television. Webb was looking to ride the wave of the popularity of the American western and provide a fun and entertaining way for motel guests to enjoy and view his spacious motel grounds. So, he also purchased this locomotive:

The Hiway House in Phoenix changed ownership and names several times in the mid-sixties and seventies, but the train stayed and continued carrying guests around the property. The name on the side of the engine changed as often as hotel ownership. The Hiway House Express was at various times the Ramada Inn Express, International Hotel Express and Sleepy Bear Express (Travelodge) among others. The interstate highway system bypassed the area and by the mid-seventies the area was in significant decline.

In the mid-'90s, the HiWay House became the Big House, when the state of Arizona purchased the property and turned it into a women's prison, which operated until the end of the 1990s.

This post card was published by Petley Studios from Phoenix, Arizona. Bob (Robert Teeple) Petley was born on November 11, 1912, in Akron, Ohio and passed away on July 7, 2006. He began his publishing career when he issued twelve black & white comic cards in 1946. he started his postcard company, Petley Studios, Inc., which would later become the nations largest publisher and distributor of scenic color postcards with dealers in Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, southwestern Colorado, and eastern California. He went on to become the largest publisher of photochrome postcards depicting Southwest views and roadside Americana. Some artist signed cards depicting Western themes were also produced. Most of his postcards seem to have been printed by Dexter Press. This firm was sold to Bruce Finchum in 1984. The above information about Petley comes from the Metropolitan Postcard Club's website.

A Trip to Washington State

This symbol is the logo from The Great Northern Railway; it was an American Class I railroad. Running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, it was the creation of 19th century railroad tycoon James J. Hill and was developed from the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad. The Great Northern's route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad route in the U.S. In 1881 Hill took over the 1856 charter of the Minneapolis & St. Cloud Railroad. He first used its franchises to build the Eastern Railway of Minnesota from Hinckley, Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin, and Duluth. Its charter was liberal enough that he chose it as the vehicle for his line to the Pacific. He renamed the railroad the Great Northern Railway; the railway then leased the St. Paul Minnesota & Manitoba RR and assumed its operation. Hill decided to extend his railroad to Havre, Montana, west to the Pacific, specifically the Puget Sound at Seattle, Washington. He had briefly considered building to Portland, but it was already served by the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company and the Northern Pacific Railway. Hill's surveyors found an easy route through the Rockies over Marias Pass. The Great Northern was opened through to Seattle in 1893 using a temporary line over Stevens Pass. In 1900 the first Cascade Tunnel, 2.63 miles long, provided relief from the switchbacks and the 4 percent grades of the temporary line and lowered the summit of the line from 4,068 feet to 3,383

feet. As you can see in this image of a train going over a bridge over Deception Falls in Washington, today it is part of the BNSF Railroad:

The train in this post card belonged to the Great Northern Railway. It is going over the same bridge - maybe it has been upgraded - as the train in the picture above. They are both going over the bridge over Deception Falls, very close to where the golden spike of the most northern transcontinental railroad in the United States was driven. This is a description of Deception Falls I found on line:
"Lining the busy Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks, a block south of US-2, Skykomish is a quirky and engaging place that seems to belong somewhere else, some long time ago. Around eight miles east of Skykomish, a well-marked turnout along US-2 gives access to one of the region’s prettiest and most historically significant sites. On the north side of the highway, the parking area’s interpretive exhibits tell the story of the Great Northern Railroad, the transcontinental railroad which was completed on this spot in 1893. A plaque displays a photograph showing the driving of the traditional golden spike, while other exhibits discuss the construction and importance of the railroad in the growth of Puget Sound. If you’re not interested in railroad lore, head along the 100-yard-long paved trail that loops back under the highway to the powerful cascade of Deception Falls. Deception Creek crashes down a few steps, then glides over smooth rock under the highway and ends in a square, misty plunge before emptying into the Tye River. If you can stand the usually bone-chilling snowmelt, you’ll be pleased to find a number of deep and clean swimming holes in the area." The Falls are just over ½ mile long.

On the back of the post card it tells us that it was published by the Lowman & Hanford Company. The Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City refers to them as the Lowman & Hanford Stationery & Printing Co. They were a "publisher of books, greeting cards, and view-cards depicting scenes from Washington State and Alaska."

They were started in 1898 but we are not sure when they stopped business. They are out of Seattle, Washington, a perfect location for publishing this post card (being only 66 miles from the falls).

Of note to me is the red postage stamp in the image above of the back of the post card. It is a two cent stamp. The sender had to use it because he was sending this post card to Switzerland. I am fascinated by the fact that this post card went from Everett, Washington to Switzerland, came back to the United States and is now in a collection in Canada. Very international!!