Really? The Toonerville Trolley?

The hand-written caption at the bottom of this post card reads, “The ‘Toonerville Trolley’ at the Grand Coulee Dam, Wash., taking tourists from the Vista House to the Powerhouse.” The Grand Coulee Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Columbia River in the state of Washington. Constructed between 1933 and 1942, it was built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation water. Construction began on July 16,1933 and it concluded on June 1, 1942. Evidently, soon after it was opened, and as part of the public relations campaign to convince the public of the need for the dam, they built a short railroad to take tourists on a tour of the dam. This train was called the “Toonerville Trolley”. That is what you see on the front of this post card. Researching something with a name like “Toonerville Trolley” in it is very difficult. There are so many paths to follow! Toonerville Trolley was part of a popular comic strip and many things became known as the Toonerville Trolley. I did find another post card on line and this caption was part of the front of the card. “Tourist Train, Grand Coulee Dam. One of the world’s shortest railroads – less than a half mile long – hauls more than 200,000 people each year from the Vista House to the power house for a personally conducted tour of the world’s greatest power producer.” The tourist train did not last very long. While doing more research, I found a picture from October 21, 1949. The caption reads, “Locomotive for tourist railroad being removed as first step in abandoning route for river-channel improvement work.”

This post card was printed using EKC paper. That process lasted between 1939 and 1940. This and the copyright date in the lower right-hand corner of the picture (1947) tell us the age of this post card. It was published by Western Souvenirs.