What a Beautiful Ride this Would Be

The Southern Pacific Railroad introduced the "Coast Line" between San Francisco and Los Angeles California on April 28, 1922. As illustrated by the novel, The Great Gatsby, the economy of the United States was recovering wonderfully after the ravages of "The Great War." It was time to provide a train service that connected these two cities to each other through a route that stayed as close to the Pacific Ocean as it could. As you can see in this picture, it stayed mighty close at times. Under the picture, on the bottom, left of the post card is one of the themes adopted by the Southern Pacific Railroad: "ROAD OF A THOUSAND WONDERS." This motto is on many of my Southern Pacific Railroad post cards. Someone actually published a book with the same title. It is available through Gutenberg.org at this web address: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48407/48407-h/48407-h.htm. It is free, if you follow a few of their simple rules. I will be blogging more about this Southern Pacific scenic train route next week.

This week I would like to look at the back of the post card. I will not delve into the backs of the post cards next week.
This post card was printed some time after April 28, 1922. I know that simply because that is the first day the trains ran on this route (see above). I also know that it was printed before 1926 even though there is not a post mark on the card. The reason I know the year is because that is the year in which Van Noy - Interstate stopped operating.

This symbol at the bottom, middle of the back of the post card indicates that it was this company that published it. Van Noy Railway Hotel and News, of Kansas City, began a series of mergers and acquisitions in 1914, starting with the Brown News Company (also headquartered in Kansas City) which was acquired on October 1, 1914 being operated as Van Noy News. In 1915, the Company began consolidating operations with the New York City based Interstate News Company. The company name was changed to Van Noy-Interstate News Company in 1917, but the company headquarters remained in Kansas City under the leadership of Ira C. Van Noy. They published post cards of trains and other items. However, as a result of changes in railroad passenger train service, Van Noy Interstate began to focus more on the hotel side of their operations. In 1922, the Company acquired the Gem Fountain Company, and in 1926 the company began operating simply as the Interstate Company. If, for some strange chance, it takes more to convince you that the Van Noy - Interstate Company published this post card, this appears on the left side of the back of the post card:

Next week, I will be addressing a bit of the history of the route started by the train on the front of this post card.