Crossing the North Platte River in Wyoming

The train on the front of this post card belongs to the Union Pacific Railroad.

It is in Wyoming, crossing the North Platte River. The bridge was built in the 19th century as part of the transcontinental railroad. Today it is a deck plate girder bridge. It is located near Fort Steele in Carbon County in the state of Wyoming. My research found the following about Fort Steele, the namesake of the bridge. It is taken from this webiste: https://www.legendsofamerica.com/wy-fortfredsteele/ Fort Fred Steele was established on June 20, 1868, to guard the men who were building the Union Pacific Railroad across southern Wyoming against Indian attacks. Located on the west bank of the North Platte River, the site was selected by Colonel Richard Dodge, and named for Major General Frederick Steele, a Civil War hero. After the railroad was completed, the soldiers continued to protect the area, especially the vulnerable railroad bridge across the North Platte River. In 1973, the Wyoming State legislature created the Fort Fred Steel State Historic Site.

The post card was published by the Souvenir Novelty Company out of Salt Lake City, Utah. The company existed from 1910 to 1927. It was a publisher of local souvenir books and postcards in lithography. Many of their cards were printed by Curt Teich. The code at the bottom-center of the card confirms that his one was printed by Curt Teich. Edward H. Mitchell was a partner in the Company: March 4, 1914 “Mr. Edward H. Mitchell has purchased our interest in the Souvenir Publishing Company"

The First One from North Carolina

The locomotive on the front of this post card is an American Style (4 – 4 – 0) - according to the Whyte Notation of locomotives. Evidently it is “Arriving in the Land of the Sky”. “Where”, you ask, “is the Land of the Sky?” Keep reading… The following information was taken from this website: https://wncmagazine.com/feature/birth_slogan As lofty descriptors go, “Land of the Sky” seems a perfect fit for Western North Carolina, but the history of how it was coined is surprisingly little known. It wasn’t the first attempt to promote the mountain region with a turn of phrase, and some of the earliest stabs at the task didn’t stick. “The Switzerland of America” never felt quite right, and “Nature’s Trundle Bed of Recuperation for Tourist and Health Seeker” didn’t have much zing, though Asheville-based ad men floated both formulations in the late 1800s. In fact, it took a Salisbury, North Carolina-born writer to pin the Land of the Sky on Western North Carolina. Frances Fisher Tiernan (1846-1920), using the pen name Christian Reid, wrote more than 50 novels, many of which romanticized travel to points near and far. One of her most popular books was set squarely in Western North Carolina: The Land of the Sky; or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, was published in 1875. Within just a few years, the catchphrase became a staple in ads for mountain railway trips, hotels, and other businesses while gracing an untold number of postcards highlighting the region. In time, it was incorporated into the names of churches, dance troupes, regional government bodies, and even Asheville’s television station, WLOS. “Despite its literary shortcomings,” Starnes noted, “Tiernan’s novel developed themes and images others would use to construct a regional tourism image for Western North Carolina.” In a land where the sky commands so much attention, Tiernan gave the place a name as fitting now as it was in her time.

The post card was published by the Brown Book Company started by Edwin Brown. It was in Asheville, North Carolina. The post card was printed in Germany; so, this card was printed after 1907 (divided back era) and before World War I (1914).

A Stab in the Dark

I am sort of going out on a limb with this one. Neither on the front nor on the back is there an indication of the name of the railroad on which this locomotive is traveling. The caption on the picture does tell us that it is following the Kentucky River – in Kentucky.

I am guessing that, because this post card was mailed in 1919, this train was on the original Lexington & Ohio Railroad tracks that were, at that time, owned by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. All of this speculation comes from internet research. A bit of the information came from this website: https://www.american-rails.com Kentucky railroads date back to 1830, just three years after our nation's first common-carrier, the Baltimore & Ohio was chartered, when the Lexington & Ohio Railroad was chartered to connect Frankfort with Lexington, a distance of about 31 miles. The railroad was able to complete the line by 1834 and by 1851 had connected Louisville along the banks of the Ohio River. The company would eventually become part of the Louisville & Nashville (L&N) system and today, its original line is still operating by RJ Corman, a diversified railroad business which owns several shortlines in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other southern states. Some more information came from this website: http://www.lnrr.org/History.aspx One of the L&N's most important expansions came early in the 1900s, when the railroad pushed its tracks deep into the coal fields surrounding Hazard and Harlan in eastern Kentucky. Acquisition in 1909 of two smaller lines and construction in 1911 and 1912 of more than 150 miles of track along the Cumberland River and the North Fork of the Kentucky River gave the L&N access to the landlocked bituminous coal riches of eastern Kentucky. In the preceding decades, the L&N built additional rail lines, not only in eastern Kentucky, but in western Kentucky,Tennessee and Alabama, to help develop new coal production points. And then, back to this one: https://www.american-rails.com The Louisville and Nashville Railroad served the heart of the Southeast from New Orleans and Memphis to Atlanta and the Florida Panhandle. It also extended to St. Louis and later reached Chicago. The L&N carries precedence as one of the few to maintain its originally chartered name, operating for more than 120 years as the Louisville & Nashville.

The post card was printed by Curt Otto Teich. That is his logo in the bottom-middle of the post card. Also, the code “A-23958” fits into the codes used by the company between 1912 and 1925. The company was founded by Curt Otto Teich (1877 - 1974), who immigrated to the United States from Lobenstein, Germany in 1896. At the peak of production, the company could print several million postcards in a single day. The Curt Teich Company operated from 1898 to 1978 and saved examples of every image they produced. In 1982, the bulk of the collection—more than 350,000+ images relating to 10,000 towns and cities across the United States, Canada, and 85 other countries—was donated by the Teich family to the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, Illinois. The collection is available to the public. If planning to visit the museum, call ahead to make an appointment, which will provide staff assistance and access to the collection. A portion of the collection can be searched online at "Digital Past".

Rome, New York - Athens, Georgia - Paris, Tennessee

While the song may cover several cities, this blog will only talk about one:

Rome New York and the train station that is there. Today, the train station on the front of this post card is serviced by Amtrak. Hoever, the station was built between 1912 and 1914 by the New York Central Railroad south of the city proper to replace the former structure downtown. Such a move was necessitated by a track realignment. The one-and-a-half-story brick building was constructed in a Neoclassical style and includes columns flanking the vestibules, decorative grillwork and large arched windows. The waiting room includes a bowed ticket window and a series of delicate triple-globed bronze chandeliers. At the rear of the waiting room are paired symmetrical staircases with ornate openwork iron railings up to the near platform. In 1988, Amtrak conveyed the station to the city of Rome. Amtrak proposed to close the station in 1996, but the city resisted and instead found federal funds to renovate the station. The $4 million reconstruction was finished in 2004. Rome, New York was founded along an ancient Native American portage path known as the Oneida Carrying Place, Deo-Wain-Sta, or The Great Carrying Place to the Six Nations (Iroquois), or the Haudenosaunee in their language. These names refer to a portage road or path between the Mohawk River to the east, which flows east to the Hudson River; and Wood Creek to the west, which flows into Lake Ontario. Rome is the second-largest city by area in New York State, and the 140th largest city in the United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 75.7 square miles (196 km2), of which 74.9 square miles (194 km2) is land and 0.8 square miles (2.1 km2) (0.99%) is water. Rome is one of two principal cities in the Utica–Rome Metropolitan Statistical Area, which lies in the "Leatherstocking Country" made famous by James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, set in frontier days before the American Revolutionary War.

The post card was published by WM. Jubb Co., Inc. out of Syracuse, New York. My internet search found many other cards also published by this compny, but I could find very little history. I did find out that the company was a publisher of view-cards depicting scenes from western New York State. Their white border cards manufactured in the United States were printed on a textured paper similar to that of linen cards. They were were produced in a variety of styles and techniques ranging from early black & white images to colorful linens and modern chromes. His later chromes were printed by Dexter Press. This post card was printed by Curt Otto Teich during his C.T. American Art phase.

Post Card Giveaway!!

I have 8 packages of about 45 post cards each to give away. They are duplicates of what is in my train post card collectiona and I hate to see them go to waste or be unused. If you would like to receive some post cards send me your address. Reimbursement for postage will be appreciated, but not necessary. contact me at Froggytales@hotmail.com

Going through Another Florida Orange Grove

If you have been following this blog for a several years, you have seen the picture on the front of this post card before. This is one of at least six post cards in my collection that have this picture,

or some variation of it, on the front. Four of the post cards tell us that the picture was taken in Florida; two say that it happened in California. This post card is part of the Florida camp. The way in which I chose to blog about this post card was as follows: Me – “Honey, choose a number between 1 and 10.” My wife – “Four.” Me – “Now choose a number between 1 and 345.” Her – “two hundred and twelve.” The first number was to choose the album of post cards; the second number was the post card within that album. Thus, we get this post card! The post card right below this one in the album (number 213) tells us that this picture is from near St. Petersburg, Florida. You can type “Florida” in the upper left-hand corner of the blog post and it will find all the posts that include this word in them. You can scroll down through the blog posts and see the other four post cards about which I have already written. They are from January 15, 2015 and February 2, 2018. I really know nothing about the picture on the front of this post card, except that is was very popular. The back of the post card does tell me many things.

The first thing that I see is that it was published by the H. & W.B. Drew Company out of Jacksonville, Florida. This is the only post card in my collection from this publisher. That is the symbol in the upper left-hand of the post card. It also seems to be post card number 1019, but I don’t see if it is part of a series of if this set of post cards was their 1,019th run of post cards. It could be number 1019 of their Florida Artistic Series of post cards. In the bottom left-hand of the post card there is another symbol. This is the state seal of Florida. Or at least it was when the post card was printed. The last thing that I found on the back of the post card was that it was published after 1930 by the Curt Otto Teich company. One series of their card numbers began with a number corresponding to the last digit of the year it was published in followed by a letter series denoting the decade: 1930’s A and AH prefix All cards with an H onwards designate Art Colortone. This post card is numbered A-19515; that means that it was published in the 1930s. This is sort of confirmed by the fact that between June 30, 1928 and January 1, 1952 the rate to mail a post card domestically was one cent. The last thing that I would like to point out is that the message on the back of the post card matches the picture on the front. The writer, Andy, is telling Terra that the oranges on the front look delicious.