Peek - A - Boo !!!

The caption on this post card tells us that the locomotive is on the north bank of the Columbia River. That puts it in the state of Washington. "The Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railroad, competitors in the transcontinental business, launched the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway in 1905 and built a line along the north side of the Columbia River. This line was known as "The North Bank Road", "The North Bank Railroad", "Columbia River Scenic Route", and "The Northwests Own Railway". The tracks were started in October 1905 and completed in February 1908, with a celebration being held on March 11th at Sheridan Point upstream of the Fort Rains Blockhouse location. On March 19th, regular passenger service between Vancouver and Pasco was begun. The journey took eight hours." This website tells us a bit about both the origin of the train line we see on the post card (information quoted above) and the outcropping of rock, known as Cape Horn. http://columbiariverimages.com/ Cape Horn is a massive basalt cliff outcrop located on the Washington side of the Columbia River at River Mile (RM) 132, approximately 10 miles upriver from Washougal, Washington. The website notes that Lewis and Clark passed by Cape Horn on November 2, 1805. Here is a quote from Clark's notebook: "... S. 47° W. 12 miles to a Stard. point of rocks of a high clift of black rocks ..." [Clark, November 2, 1805, first draft] Today there is a six-mile long hiking trail in the area that is not for the casual hiker. I noticed that there is a seasonal closure on the lower loop of the trail from February 1st to July 15th to protect the local peregrine falcon nesting habitat.

The post card was published by Lipschuetz & Katz of Portland, Oregon. It was printed by the American Art Post Card Company. Oregon’s biggest event happened just as Post Cards began to boom in popularity. The Lewis & Clark Exposition opened in 1905 as Portland took center stage in its own World’s Fair. This event was single-handedly responsible for the production of 450 different post cards. Beautiful European-produced lithographs made up the bulk of these post cards. Also produced at the fair were leather, wood, copper and aluminum post cards. Several Portland post card publishers got their start at the Lewis & Clark Expo: B.B. Rich and D.M. Averill, as well as E.P. Charlton. Lipschuetz & Katz started publishing post cards in the years after the Expo.