One Hundred and Nine Years Ago Today

The Lucin Cut-off is a railroad line which included a railroad trestle which crossed the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Built by the Southern Pacific Company between February 1902 and March 1904 across Promontory Point, it bypassed the original Central Pacific Railroad route through Promontory Summit where the Golden Spike was driven in 1869. By going west across the lake from Ogden, Utah to Lucin, Utah, it cut off 43 miles and avoided curvatures and grades. The trestle was eventually replaced in the late 1950s with a parallel causeway built under contract by the Morrison Knudsen construction company. I am very excited to be able to say that I have a piece of wood from the original trestle in my possession. I got in from these people: Trestlewood.com/story


The Williamson-Haffner Engraving Company existed and was headquartered in Denver, Colorado from 1905 to 1915.

The company was a publisher of lithographic souvenir books and view-cards of the American West. While their views were largely based on photographic reproduction, many scenes were artist drawn. They also produced comic postcards. This post card was a photographic reproduction printed by another company but published by the Williamson-Haffner Co. I have 5 post cards of extremely similar images. 4 of them were printed by the company I would love to be able to identify. It has the words "POST CARD" over an American flag draped over a staff lying sideways (see the top of this card). I have many, many post cards from this printer. Unfortunately, none of them identify the printer, only the publishers.

I have seen the message on the back of the post card several times. It must have been popular at the turn of the last century. "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." I am pretty sure that the word "Dearest" was scratched off much later by another "collector"; and the "mn365 20" looks like it was added after, too.

The post card was mailed 109 years ago today at 3:30 in the afternoon.