It was a beautiful ride.

Before I went to the East Coast to go to college from the Los Angeles area, my Dad and I took a trip to Northern Arizona, where I grew up. As part of that trip we took a scenic train ride through the White Mountains area. It was a side gig for the Apache Railway Company. Their main line of income was logging trains.

The train on the front of this post card is the train that my Dad and I took back in the early 1970s. This website will tell you more of the history of the Apache Railway: https://www.american-rails.com/apache.html The common-carrier Apache Railway was originally built to handle logs and paper products, owned by the Apache Logging Company. The history of the Apache Railway begins on September 5, 1917 when construction commenced from a connection with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway at Holbrook building southward to tap timber reserves for a paper mill. A year later, almost exactly to the day on September 6, 1918 the railroad completed its line as far south as Snowflake and two years after that in the summer of 1920 the route was opened to McNary, a total of 72 main line miles. The railroad would reach a peak size of 140 miles, which included several branches and spurs. In 1924 the railroad was acquired by the Cady Logging Corporation. From October 1, 1931, until 1936, amid the Great Depression, the APA was placed in receivership. In 1935 it again changed ownership to Southwest Lumber Mills. Finally, in 1960 the railroad was purchased by Southwest Forest Industries. The Apache owned steam locomotives but was well-known during its diesel years for operating venerable American Locomotive Company products. A tourist railroad, the White Mountain Scenic Railroad, operated steam powered passenger excursions over the Southwest Forest Industries-owned line from McNary to the logging camp of Maverick, AZ, beginning in 1964. As track conditions deteriorated, the excursions were cut back in later years to a point about half of the way to Maverick. In the final years, it operated north from Pinetop Lakes to a place called Bell Siding on U.S. Route 60. In 1976, the White Mountain Scenic Railroad ceased operations and moved its equipment to Heber City, Utah to be used on an excursion there known as the "Heber Creeper." In 1984 it abandoned its line south of Snowflake, reducing its property to 33 miles. The railroad was hit hard by the 2012 closure of its largest customer, the paper mill in Snowflake.

The post card was published by Norm's Publishing House. The company's address was 610 McLellan in Mesa, Arizona. The interesting thing about the company listing on this post card is the phone number. "... for a train ride on the steam powered WHITE MOUNTAIN SCENIC RAILROAD, Phone 245 or write Box 496, McNary, Arizona. The phone number only has three digits. This post card is a photochrome sytle of card. They first came out in 1939. The address of the railroad does not have a zip code; those came out in 1963. Given these facts, I would guess that this card is from the late 1950s or the very early 1960s.