106 Year Old Post Card from the City in Which I Live.

This post card was given to me just this past week by a friend who respects history and its preservation. This post card was sent from one of his ancestoral relatives to another relative back in 1915. I want to respect that history and so I am entering it into my blog this week. There are several more to follow.

This post card shows a Canadian Pacific train crossing the newly constructed High Level Bridge in Edmonton, the capital city of the province of Alberta in Canada. The post card was sent on June 4, 1915, almost two years to the day since the bridge saw its first passenger train. Below is the story of the High Level Bridge. The High Level Bridge was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). It purchased an already existing railroad (the Calgary and Edmonton Railroad) which had begun the surveying for the bridge. The Calgary and Edmonton Railroad wanted to build a bridge over the North Saskatchewan River to join the cities of Strathcona and Edmonton together. Then the CPR negotiated rights of way, design and content of the bridge - among many other things. Finally, construction of the bridge began on August 14, 1910. There are 62 land piers and four river piers holding up the bridge. Construction of the piers was completed in 1911. The addition of the steel girders began on the south side of the river and slowly - and safely - the crew made its way to the north side, and in early 1913 the bridge made it to the side of the river where the Legislative Building is The bridge was to carry a train in the middle of the top of the bridge and street car lines on the outside of the top of the bridge. The bottom deck was built to carry automobiles The bridge is 755 meters long or 2,478 feet and 13 meters wide or 43 feet. It originally carried street cars, steam engines and cars. It rises 64 meters or 210 feet above the North Saskatchewan River. On June 2, 1913 the first CPR passenger train steamed into Edmonton over the newly completed structure. The first streetcar crossed the bridge on August 11, 1913. By that time, the cities of Strathcona and Edmonton became one city: Edmonton. Today, I drive a street car over the tracks that the train in this post card is traveling. It is part of my volunteer duties as a member of the Edmonton Radial Railway Society.

This is the back of the post card. There is a nice, chatty, newsy letter. It was sent from Ponoka, Alberta, but there is no sign of a stamp having been used. The left side of the post card tells us that the post card was published by Frasch Fotos of Edmonton. My searches on the internet do confirm that such a business did exist and there are other post cards to prove it. However, there is nothing about the history of the company, that I could find.