The Water Just Disappears!

I grew up in Arizona so I know how unforgiving the desert can be. The river to the right of this train as it passes through Palisade Canyon in the desert of north-central Nevada, USA certainly looks full and flowing. Never mind being part of the easy route for building the transcontinental railroad,

the beauty of this canyon in the desert should be enough to choose this route. The river that the train tracks follow is called the Humboldt River. It was named in 1845 by John Fremont. The river starts north of Wells, Nevada and flows westward to Lovelock, 530 kilometers (330 miles) away. It has the distinction of being the longest river that begins and ends within the boundaries of one state. But, it you add the winding, wandering, twisting and turning path through the state it could be twice as long.
Early explorers, settlers and empire builders took advantage of the Humboldt River, each in their own way. It was discovered by Peter Ogden (think Ogden Utah and the Ogden Route of the Southern Pacific) in 1828 while he was exploring for the Hudson's Bay Company; their trappers took beavers from the waters of the Humboldt. The settlers that followed the Overland Trail to California would have probably rejoiced at the cools waters in their trek through the desert. The builders of the Transcontinental Railroad used the path of the Humboldt River to get through northern Nevada on their way to Utah.
The Humboldt River, unlike so many other rivers, does NOT flow into the ocean. It slowly loses all its water to evaporation in what is called the Humboldt Sink. The United States Geological Survey suggests that Palisade Canyon is the point where the river's flow ceases to increase and begins to decrease. The back of the card that you see here, below:

is the typical back of the post card printed by Edward Mitchell of San Francisco. I have written about him in many past blogs, so I will save you the verbiage here. Suffice it to say that the company was a major printer and publisher of view-cards depicting scenes throughout the American West. They temporarily moved to Clay Street when their Post Street office was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, but they later went on to set up a factory on Army Street. Even though they developed a number of their own unique techniques to print their cards like the Mitchell Photo-Chrome Process, many cards were also contracted out to other printers. Likewise they printed postcards for a number of other publishers.