Narrow Gauge in California

This website gives us a lot of good history about the railroad that the locomotive on the front of this post card is working for: https://www.abandonedrails.com/west-side-lumber-company The back of the post card says that it is the West Side Lumber Company, but it wasn't always known by that name. Take a read... Tuolumne to Stanislaus National Forest, CA Home | CA | HH&YV , WSLCRR Note: For more information on the WSLC and its railroad, check out Last of the Three Foot Loggers by Allan Krieg. A railroad that had many names over the years, this three-foot narrow gauge railroad first operated under the name of the Hetch Hetchy & Yosemite Valley Railroad, starting in 1898. As a wholly owned subsidiary of the West Side Flume & Lumber Company, its primary purpose was to haul fresh-cut logs from the vast sugar pine forests of eastern Tuolumne County to the expansive West Side Lumber Mill in Tuolumne City. Here, the logs would be cut into dimensional lumber and transferred to the Sierra Railway of California for shipping. As the years went past, the HH&YV was eventually reorganized and absorbed into its parent company, becoming the West Side Lumber Company Railroad, but all the while its Shays and Heislers continued to run into the rugged backcountry, winding through the multiple canyons and creeks that fed the north fork of the Tuolumne River. For 64 years they ran, until finally in 1962, technology and economic forces caught up with them. By that point, the West Side reigned supreme as the last narrow gauge logging railroad still operating in the American west. In later years, efforts were made to resurrect the mighty West Side as a tourist railroad, spearheaded primarily by Glenn Bell and his "West Side & Cherry Valley Railroad" operation. But the numbers simply didn’t add up, and the WS&CVRR was forced to close its doors in the early 1980s. Today, a portion of the former West Side right-of-way serves as a hiking and equestrian trail. Members of the public can hike from the former station of Friedenberg (approximately milepost one point five by the original railroad timetables), to the station of River (milepost seven), where the tracks crossed the north fork of the Tuolumne on a large wooden trestle. Much of the trackage through this area still remains undisturbed, more than 20 years after the last train rolled by.

Once again the mysterious publisher strikes the blog post. At least in this one he points out that the fireman is sitting on the back of the tender, so he titles the card "Love me tender".

This One is Standing Upright!

In December of 2022 I posted about a train that had been on the tracks when the great San Francisco earthquake hit. That train and this one are related. They both were owned by the Northwestern Pacific railroad.

The train in the picture on the front of this post card is stopping at the station at Point Reyes in California. The back of the post card tells us that this picture was taken around 1910. This website tells us about Point Reyes. https://marinmagazine.com/community/history/point-reyes-stations-railroad-days/

In 1875, when the North Pacific Coast Railroad reached from Sausalito to the eastern shore of Tomales Bay—with a ferry connection to San Francisco and stops en route in San Anselmo and San Geronimo Valley—the stop for the Point Reyes Peninsula was called Olema Station. Then, in 1882, when a U.S. Post Office was opened, the town’s official name was changed to Point Reyes Station. In 1933, the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, as it was then called, pulled out of Point Reyes Station and it became a slower-paced agricultural community. The train in the picture belonged to the Northwestern Pacific Railroad. This website tells us more about the railroad history – right up to today! http://www.nwprrhs.org/history.html The Northwestern Pacific Railroad, the 'Redwood Empire Route', played a major role in the growth of Northern California. The line was created in 1907 through the consolidation of six separate picturesque railroad companies held by the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads. At its height, the Northwestern Pacific Railroad was an amalgamation of some sixty different companies. Some of the forerunners built extensive and substantial operating lines. Others, were short lines such as the many logging lines in the Humboldt Bay region. Nearly a third consisted of companies which incorporated but never laid a foot of track. All of them contributed, in some fashion, to the rich heritage of the NWP. Diversity was a key word in the history of Redwood Empire railroading. Gauges varied from the Sonoma Prismoidal, an early wooden monorail, to the odd-gauged logging lines, many built to accommodate their four-legged motive power. In between lay the two foot Sonoma Magnesite RR, the first-class narrow gauge North Pacific Coast and, of course, the more common standard gauge lines. Power was supplied by horse, mules, oxen, steam, electricity, and internal combustion engines, both gas and diesel. The NWP, with its affectionate 'Nowhere in Particular' nickname, operated standard gauge, narrow gauge, ferry steamboats and car floats, electric 3rd rail and overhead trolley interurbans, a streamlined 'name' train along with unusual connectors such as funiculars and scenic tourist railways. This transportation network in the pre-World War II years many claimed was too far ahead of its time. Rarely is so much fascinating diversity found in the origins of one company. Since 1929, when Southern Pacific bought the Santa Fe's equal interest in the line, the NWP has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of SP. In 1984, the trackage for Outlet, near Willits, north to Korblex was sold to a new company, the Eureka Southern RR, later named the North Coast RR. In 1996, the North Coast RR and the former "south end" of the Southern Pacific-owned NWP became the "new" Northwestern Pacific Railroad under public ownership. The new NWP's goals include handling more freight by rail along the Highway 101 corridor, establishing passenger excursion trains, and eventually providing regular passenger commute service.

The post card was published by The Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History, which is named after its founder, a U.C. Berkeley graduate in history who enjoyed a long career at the Oakland Tribune. In the mid-1960s, Jack Mason, along with his wife Jean, retired to his lifelong summer community of Inverness in West Marin County and began to document the history of the area, eventually writing eight books and publishing a delightful quarterly journal, Point Reyes Historian. The Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History is primarily an archive with some museum collections created to build upon local historian Jack Mason's extensive history collection. The Museum collects and preserves materials pertaining to the history of the Point Reyes Peninsula and Tomales Bay regions. Our mission is to enrich the community through exhibits, publications, outreach programs, and research opportunities. We seek to inspire public interest in West Marin history and to highlight its connection to contemporary life. This information was taken from: https://jackmasonmuseum.org/about/

Capturing a Real Historic Moment

The picture on the front of this post card is a capture of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad in the United States. The picture was taken at Gold Station, California, which is about 92 kilomters northeast of Sacramento, California. This picture is of a work train of the Central Pacific at Dixie Cut near Gold Run Station May 1865 at the rail head in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California when the grade was being cut above Auburn for tracks of the first transcontinental railroad. This website has been very valuable in helping me to find any information about the picture on the front of the post card. https://calisphere.org The picture was taken by Alfred A. Hart (1816 – 1908) Alfred A. Hart was born in Connecticut in 1816. In 1865 he was commissioned to photograph the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) and was promoted to the CPRR's official photographer in 1866. Hart would photograph along the CPRR line in the summers between 1865 and 1868. Hart was terminated from the CPRR in 1869. He died in 1908 in Alameda County, California. There are many stereographs of the Central Pacific Railroad taken by Alfred A. Hart depicting the construction and surrounding landscape of the Central Pacific Railroad in northern California and Nevada between 1862-1869.

This post card is part of the MASTER PHOTOGRAPHERS series that was published by the Lightfoot Collection in Huntington Station, New York. Last week's post card was number 21 in the series; this post card is number 25. You can see all of the Masters at this website: http://wallywombatscollectables.com/Master-Photographer-by-Lightfoot.php

I Feel the Earth Move Under my Feet

The information in the first paragraph was taken from this website: https://yubanet.com/scitech/toppled-train-offers-insight-into-1906-san-francisco-earthquake/ The train laying on its side in the picture on this post card was near the

Point Reyes station north of San Francisco, stopped on a siding for refueling, when it took its historic tumble. An eyewitness to the event said the conductor had just climbed back into the locomotive: “when the train gave a great lurch to the east, followed by another to the west, which threw the whole train on its side. The astonished conductor dropped off as it went over, and at the sight of the falling chimneys and breaking widows of the station, he understood that it was the Temblor.” The eyewitness account of the train lurching east then west before toppling suggests that the hypocenter of the 1906 is likely to be south of Point Reyes, perhaps offshore of San Francisco and San Juan Bautista, as others have calculated.

The post card was published by The Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History, which is named after its founder, a U.C. Berkeley graduate in history who enjoyed a long career at the Oakland Tribune. In the mid-1960s, Jack Mason, along with his wife Jean, retired to his lifelong summer community of Inverness in West Marin County and began to document the history of the area, eventually writing eight books and publishing a delightful quarterly journal, Point Reyes Historian. The Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History is primarily an archive with some museum collections created to build upon local historian Jack Mason's extensive history collection. The Museum collects and preserves materials pertaining to the history of the Point Reyes Peninsula and Tomales Bay regions. Our mission is to enrich the community through exhibits, publications, outreach programs, and research opportunities. We seek to inspire public interest in West Marin history and to highlight its connection to contemporary life. This information was taken from: https://jackmasonmuseum.org/about/

History Passed on from One Person to the Next

The train in the picture on the front of this post card belongs to the Western

Pacific Railroad. The picture was taken in the Feather River Canyon in northern California. Wikipedia provides us the following information: The Feather River Route is a rail line that was built and operated by the Western Pacific Railroad. It was constructed between 1906 and 1909, and connects the cities of Oakland, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The line was built to compete with the Central Pacific Railroad (and later Southern Pacific Railroad), which at the time held a nearly complete monopoly on Northern California rail service. The route derives its name from its crossing of the Sierra Nevada, where it follows both the North and Middle Forks of the Feather River. The route is famous for its impressive engineering qualities and its considerable scenic value. All of the route is now owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. The post card is from the J. H. Eastman collection. This website provides pertinent information about the photographer and publisher: https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/archives-and-special-collections/manuscript/eastmans-originals-collection/ Jervie Henry Eastman was born, July 20, 1880, in White Cloud, Michigan.

His family moved to northern California in 1886. In 1898, Eastman launched his photographic career in Sisson, California (later named Mount Shasta), as a view photographer. He became a partner in the Shasta View Company in 1907. Eastman lost his entire stock of plates and cards in a fire in 1912. In 1921, Eastman moved to Susanville and established Eastman & Company as a commercial photography and post card studio. In 1936 he hired Mirl Simmons, a young photographer from Hillsborough, West Virginia, to help with the postcard photography. In 1947, Eastman and Simmons became partners. The business had expanded to provide photographic supplies to southeastern Oregon and studios in Westwood, Weed, and Susanville. Eastman retired from photography in 1959 and sold his share of the business to Simmons. He died in Susanville on February 11, 1969. Simmons ran the Eastman Studios until 1980, when he retired and sold the business to John and Shirley Castle. Mirl Simmons died on April 27, 1987, in Jamestown, California. The Eastman's Originals Collection (the historical postcards and negatives) was sold to Anne Fisher in 1982. She managed the collection until her retirement in 1994. She donated the collection to the University of California, Davis, in 1994.

Cahuenga - Little Hills

The railroad that is featured in these two post cards is a "Dummy Line" that ran between Los Angeles and Hollywood in the late 19th and early 20th centures. A Dummy Line is a term used in railroading to describe railroad tracks that did not connect communities nor seem have any serious direction to them. This Dummy Line was named the Cahuenga Valley Railroad. Cahuenga is the Spanish word for the community of Indigenous Peoples (Tongva and Tataviam) that lived in the area. It means "Little Hills". With the completion of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885 Southern California experienced the fastest growth that had been know up to that time. In about 1883 Harvey Henderson Wilcox moved to Los Angeles from Topeka, Kansas; ultimately founding Hollywood in 1888. Mr. Wilcox made considerable money opening subdivisions but he sold little land in Hollywood to the newcomers. He moved one of his farm houses to Cahuenga Avenue, gave up his ornate Los Angeles home and made the move to Hollywood permanently. Mr. Wilcox was not frightened by the bursting of the boom in 1889. He cut up his 160 acre ranch with avenues and lined his streets with pepper trees.

Wilcox persuaded the Cahuenga Valley Railroad to extend its steam dummy line up Western Avenue and out Prospect Avenue (now Hollywood Boulevard) to Wilcox Avenue. The Cahuenda Valley Railroad was a dummy line that was built to a narrow gauge. Its sole purpose was to move people across the Cahuenga Pass into the Hollywood area. The train shown on the front of this post card belonged to that Railroad. Tourists began to come, and some bought ranches, but not enough to keep the line running. Then E.C. Hurd, a wealthy Colorado miner arrived. He bought acreage at the corner of Wilcox and Prospect and put in an immense lemon orchard, spending $50,000 for water. Hurd bought out the Cahuenga Valley Railroad and extended it to Laurel Canyon.

The train on the front of this post card is shown sitting in front of Mr. Hurd's home. Hurd's purchase and extension of the line was somewhat of a help, but Hollywood was only a fair success. In 1892 Wilcox had died, land poor. Hurd followed him a few years later. In the meantime, the Los Angeles Pacific Electric Railway bought the Cahuenga Valley Railroad, standardized the gauge (1908) and electrified it. Up to 1900 there were not more than 500 people in Hollywood and most of them came only after the electric cars began running through to Santa Monica from Los Angeles. The cars brought tourists, and at Cahuenga Avenue delivered them to C.M. Pierce (later to be the operator and chief tour guide of the Balloon Route Trolley Trip), who drove them around the valley in a tallyho hand gave them a chicken dinner at the Glen-Holl Hotel, all for 75¢. This hotel, a rambling frame structure stood at Ivar and Yucca. After dinner the tourists retook the car on to the beach. The railroad line was abandoned and removed in 1915.

Both of these post cards are published and distributed by the Olde Tyme Photo Cards Bicentennial Station in Los Angeles, California. These two post cards represent 40% of the total of post cards from Olde Tyme Photo Cards. Both were printed between 1963 and 1983. 1963 is when Zip Codes were introduced and 1983 is when the 5-digit zip code had four more digits added to make it a 9-digit zip code.

Salt Lake City to Oakland on the Western Pacific Railroad

The train on the front of this post card is on its way from Salt Lake City

to Oakland. It is traveling on the Western Pacific Railroad line constructed along the Feather River in California. That little building you see toward the bottom is Belden Station. The information about Belden Station and the Feather River Route was taken from these two websites: From www.fs.usda.gov/internet/stelprdb5397333 and from www.YankeeHillHistory.com In Mrch of 1903, the Denver Rio Grande Railroad financed the creation of the Western Pacific Railway in California. The march was on to create a passage to Oakland and San Francisco for the Denver Rio Grande Railroad. A survey party was dispatched along the North Fork of the Feather River to finalize that portion of the route. The Utah Construction Co. began work on the railroad here in 1905 for Western Pacific Railroad. The whole route was completed in 1909 and covered 927 miles from Salt Lake City to Oakland. The Feather River route was chosen as a low-elevation passage through the Sierra Nevada, following the erosional cut of the Feather River through the crest. From Oroville to Beckwourth Pass, the line was constructed to allow for only a maximum 1% grade for the entire climb, as well as for the entire 927 miles of rail between San Francisco & Salt Lake City. Improved access helped to begin an era of recreation in the Feather River Canyon. As early as 1911, Western Pacific publicized the Feather River route as the scenic route. The trains would stop at the resorts popping up along the route. You and the family could take a train in the morning, fish all day and return that evening to Oroville. If you wanted to spend the weekend or even longer, these stops provided lodging. In 1912 a round trip from Oroville to Beldon was $1.10 Folks would catch the Western Pacific’s “Fisherman’s Special” up to Belden for a weekend of prized Rainbow Trout at the Riverside Resort. Settlers and miners living at Humbug Valley brought wagons down the Longville Road, south to the rail station at Belden Town. The original wooden bridge was replaced with a steel bridge in 1912. From 1909 to 1937 the railroad was king of the canyon.

The post card was published by Souvenir Novelty Company. I have 21 post cards that they published in my collection. The company existed in Salt Lake City, Utah 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 dividing line between correspondence and the address sections tells us that this post card, indeed, was printed by Curt Teich. Edward H. Mitchell was a partner in the Souvenir Novelty Company: March 4, 1914 “Mr. Edward H. Mitchell has purchased our interest in the Souvenir Publishing Company".

The Final Leg

The train on the front of this post card is peeking out of one of the human-made wonders of Southern California. The wonder is the tunnel that made the final connection of the Southern Pacific Railroad possible, the San Fernando Tunnel.

Below is some history that explains the significance of the building of the tunnel. Its title is “1876: Southern Pacific Tunnels Through”. It was written by Alan Pollack, M.D. president of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, and was found on this website: https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/pollack0710tunnel.html Work began on the San Fernando Railroad Tunnel on March 22, 1875. Former Central Pacific Railroad worker Frank Frates was chosen to supervise some 1,000 Chinese and 500 white laborers in constructing the tunnel. Frates and his workers faced a sandstone mountain saturated with water and oil, causing frequent cave-ins and loss of life. According to Marie Harrington in her 1976 pamphlet titled "A Golden Spike": "Frates' excavation was 22 feet high, 16½ feet wide at the bottom and over 18 feet at the shoulders, an angular arch being formed overhead. The Chinese worked as teams of two, one man holding the wedge in place against the rock while his partner swung the heavy sledge. The upper half of the tunnel was dug in advance of the bottom half for a distance of about 20 feet. Temporary timbers were placed as soon as the excavations were made; permanent timbers of Oregon cedar would be placed later. The lower half of the tunnel was dug by another crew of workers, the dirt being carried away by two-horse cars running on laid track. Day and night the work went on in 8-hour shifts, the Chinese being paid $1.00 per day and the white carpenters and mechanics receiving $2.60 a day for a 12-hour shift. A city of tents was located near the south end of the tunnel mouth for the workers." Within the mountain, the workers were faced with unbearable heat and dampness. Emma Louie of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California — who wrote about the Chinese contribution to the railroad in the 1976 Golden Spike Centennial Souvenir Program — quoted Remi Nadeau stating, "Oriental toilers fell at their work in regular succession and had to be carried to the sunshine burning with fever." Originally estimated to take two years to complete, work was begun at both the north and south ends of the tunnel. To help expedite the enormous task, surveyors determined a spot at the summit of the mountain from which a vertical shaft was dug to meet with the center of the tunnel. This allowed waste rock to be hauled out of the tunnel by means of a large cable drum and hoisting engine built in Sacramento. The tunnel actually took just over a year to complete. Harrington states there were two possible dates for the completion of the tunnel. The first version has Chinese diggers coming face to face July 14, 1876, with the opening of the tunnel just one-half inch out of line. Another version has Frates himself completing the tunnel in August 1876, removing the last cart of earth with his own hands. At any rate, the first train passed through this miraculous, 6,966.5-foot tunnel August 12, 1876. At the time of completion, it was the third longest tunnel in the United States and fourth longest in the world. The courageous work done on the San Fernando Tunnel culminated in the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Lang Station on September 5, 1876. A Golden Spike ceremony took place that day as the last tracks were laid. Unlike the ceremony for the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah, thousands of Chinese were in attendance at Lang Station. Remi Nadeau described the scene: "Clad in basket hats, blue denim jackets and trousers, and cotton sandals, stood along either side of the mounded right-of-way. Four thousand strong, they lined the roadbed in military file, leaning on their long-handled shovels, ‘like an army at rest after a well-fought battle."

It is obvious that that the card was published by the B.N. Company, (that is their logo in the top left-hand corner) but I know nothing about them. It was published between 1907 and 1915 - that is the Divided Back Era of post cards in the United States.

Not the Original Picture, but Good Enough

The informaiton below was gleaned from this webiste: https://www.westland.net/venicehistory/articles/rail.htm Venice, California (a beach resort town founded in 1905) was built on 3 kilometers of coast land west of Los Angeles. It was the result of the vision of Abbot Kinney, a millionaire who made his fortune in the tobacco trade. Ironically, he died on November 4, 1920 of lung cancer. Part of his vision included a transportation system based on a narrow gauge, miniature railway.

Mr. Kinney hired John Coit to oversee the construction and management of the mile and three quarter long railroad. The purpose of the railway was to take passengers from the Windward Avenue business district on a loop across canal bridges then return via a loop up Washington Boulevard, past the Lake Avenue maintenance yard and back to the Windward station along Mildred Avenue. Coit ordered a Prairie 2-6-2 oil burning engine at a cost of $4,510 from the Johnson Machine Works in Los Angeles. The locomotive was finished in black with brass rails and silver lettering. The first set of five, 12 passenger cars was painted royal blue, while the second set ordered later was painted cherry red. The Venice Miniature Railroad remained a popular ride and had run of weekend for twenty years. The train was opposed by merchants along its route on Washington Boulevard. Since the city of Venice planned an ordinance that would prohibit miniature railroads from operating on streets, Thornton Kinney closed it on February 13, 1925. They sold it to a man in Denver in 1928 who said he was moving it to Spokane Washington. However, the locomotives all ended up at scrap yards in northern California. One of the engines was placed on display at the scrap yard and, after several years it was purchased for use in Southern California again. Fortunately the railroad was acquired by Don McCoy, who, with his two sons, then spent three years restoring the train from the ground up. The train then began operation in 1972 at Legg Lake at the Whittier Narrows Recreational Area. It operated on its one mile long loop until 1978 when vandalism became a problem.

The post card was published by Olde Tyme Photo Cards, Bicentennial Station out of Los Angeles, California. A search on the internet did not come up with any information about the company, so I presume that it has ceased business. The post card in my collection is a sepia reproduction of an actual coloured post card from the early 1900s. The post card in my collection was printed after 1963; I know this because there is a zip code in the company's address on the back of the card.

For My Friend, Louise DePape

I recently received an e-mail from my friend, Louise DePape saying that she loves "the beautiful trains, especially the the two-tone orange and silver ones."

This post is dedicated to you, Louise. These are some of my favourite ones, too. They are from the Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight trains that ran between San Francisco and Los Angeles from 1937 to 1974. This route started by using steam locomotives and switched to diesels in the 1950s. The picture on the front of this post card is one of the diesels used on that route. It is an E-9 model of locomotive built by Electro-Motive Diesel for delivery in December of 1954 to the Southern Pacific Railroad. It made its first trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco on January 4, 1955. It was retired on December 24, 1969 and donated for heritage preservation. It is currently at the California Railway Museum in Sacramento. After this diesel was retired, Southern Pacific continued to operate the Coast Daylight until 1974, when AMTRAK took over the operation of passenger service in the United States.

The post card was published by the Railway & Locomotive Historial Society, Inc. They were founded in 1921, and are the oldest organization in North America devoted to railroad history. They were among the first anywhere to pursue formal studies in the history of technology. The Society promotes research and encourages preservation of documentation and photography of business history, finance, labor history, and biography as well as technology. I am familiar with them because I used to go to the Los Angels County Fairgrounds in Pomona, California as a kid to vist the Big Boy on static display. This is the same Big Boy (4014) that was reactivated by the Union Pacific for the sesquicentennial (150 years) of the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Two Birds with One Stone...

This post card shows how the Southern Pacific Railroad solved two challenges with one design. The first, and most obvious is the fact that this engine is not running backwards. The front of the train is to the right, where the cab is. In the northern California routes, especially through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the engineers' lives were being threatened. As the locomotive entered the various tunnels, the smokestack led the way. As they continued through the tunnel there was no place for the smoke and gases to escape. The train crew had to drive right through the heavy pollution, breathe in the poisons and, perhaps succumb to lack of oxygen. The solution to this was to move the cab forward. The fireman, in a coal-fired locomotive, was just below the smokestack rather than behind it; thus, he, too, avoided asphyxiation. The first cab-forward locomotive was delivered in 1908.
The second challenge that is solved in the locomotive shown on this post card was the need for power. Some of the grades the Southern Pacific faced were as much as 2.5%. Getting through the steep grades required either many engines linked together - or this solution. This engine is called a "Mallet" (pronounced mal-ay); it was invented by a Swiss (think lots of mountains) engineer Anatole Mallet who lived from 1837 to 1919. A Mallet engine has one boiler that is connected to two sets of driving cylinders; this is also called an articulated engine. What makes this a Mallet engine is that the steam goes through one set of cylinders (rear) at high pressure, the exhaust from those cylinders is at a lower pressure, but strong enough to still be used in the second set of cylinders (front set) before it is sent out the exhaust.

Again, this is an Edward Mitchell post card as indicated by the back of the post card.

It's a Heritage Railroad Today

This train line through Niles Canyon near Oakland, California, was part of the Transcontinental Railroad. It was eventually abandoned by the Southern

Pacific Railroad. Today, it is a heritage railroad.
The tracks were laid by the first Western Pacific Railroad Company (formed in 1862 - there was another one formed in 1903). They started construction from San Jose towards Sacramento. They built twenty miles of track that reached into Alameda Creek canyon in 1866. The first passenger excursion entered the canyon on October 2nd of that year. In September, 1869, four months after the famous golden spike ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah, the Central Pacific Railroad completed the transcontinental rail link between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay, finishing the track through the canyon. The Central Pacific had acquired the Western Pacific and other local railroads and built track to connect them at a waterfront terminal at Alameda Point. The Central Pacific constructed a freight terminal at the west end of the canyon and a town quickly sprang up around it. The town was named for Addison C. Niles, a prominent judge and former railroad attorney. The Southern Pacific Railroad purchased the Central Pacific and slowly, over many decades, finally abandoned this part of their line through the canyon. They gave the right of way to Alameda County. Then, on May 21, 1988, almost 122 years after the first Western Pacific excursion, the Pacific Locomotive Association brought railroad passenger operations back to life in Niles Canyon. Presently, Niles Canyon Railway provides train rides to the public year-round between Sunol, California and Niles in Fremont, California. The above information is gleaned from: https://www.ncry.org/about/

The former Southern Pacific route from Oakland to Tracy via Niles Canyon is now abandoned, except for the portion from Sunol to Niles Station operated by the heritage railway known as the Niles Canyon Railway. This line was the original westernmost section of the First Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay (by way of Stockton and the Altamont Pass). It was completed in September 1869 by the Western Pacific Railroad (1862-1870), but lost its transcontinental traffic in 1879 to a shorter route through Benicia. The Southern Pacific tracks in Niles Canyon are on the north side of the canyon. Southern Pacific, being the first railroad in the canyon, chose the best route. The Union Pacific Railroad (formerly Western Pacific Railroad) has an active mainline on the south side of the canyon. The Altamont Corridor Express runs along this line on weekdays. This information was taken from Wikipedia.

This post card

continues the Edward Mitchell series (though not on purpose on my account) of post cards in this blog.

I blogged about this place - Shasta Springs - back on April 19, 2014; but, there was a different post card picture featured then. It was published by the Newman Post Card Company. These two post cards were both printed by Edward Mitchell out of San Francisco - just like the post card from last week's blog. These both show the very popular tourist spot in northern California, Shasta Springs. In the late 1800s and early 1900s people used to flock to a summer resort on the Sacrament River for their health and enjoyment. It was so popular that the Southern Pacific Railroad built a train station for those who were going to disembark there. It was near the small town of Dunsmuir, California whose population came in at 1,650 in the 2010 census. Dunsmuir is where the Southern Pacific makes a couple of wicked hairpin turns to get up the river valley.

The resort closed in the early 1950s when it was sold and continues to be owned by the Saint Germain Foundation, and is used as a major facility by that organization (you can look up this organization on Wikipedia). It is no longer open to the public and the lower part of the resort - the bottling plant, the train station, the incline railway, the kiosk and the fountains are all gone. The falls that were visible from the railroad tracks and what ruins are left of the lower part of the resort are all overgrown by blackberry bushes.

Here is what the back of the post cards look like - a typical Edward Mitchell look. The bottom post card has a very short message written on it. According to this article, that message is not so innocent.... http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/06/sex_and_pop_the_forgotten_1909_hit_that_introduced_adultery_to_american.html

In the spring of 1909, American popular song got sexy. Of course, love and courtship, and by extension sex, had been Topic A in pop music for decades. But while songwriters had long trafficked in euphemisms and innuendo—coy talk of “sighing” and “spooning” beneath the old oak tree and by the light of the silvery moon—it was a 1909 hit by composer Harry Von Tilzer and lyricist Jimmy Lucas, “I Love, I Love, I Love My Wife—But Oh! You Kid!,” which opened Tin Pan Alley to brasher, bawdier, more raucously comic songs of lust. The comment written upside down and on a slant on the back of this post card is ......... "Oh, you kid."

Now Begins the Hard Part!

I wonder if the post card was trying to show the train or show what a

passenger could see while on the train. It is a view from Cape Horn looking at the American River in northern California (about 100 kilometers - 60 miles - from Sacramento). Many times the train would actually stop and let the passengers off so that they could admire the scenery and the view. While the notes on the front of this post card tell us that this view is on the "Ogden Route, S.P.R.R." (top right-hand corner of the front), this section of rail was actually built by the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the Transcontinental Railroad. Part of this article in https://www.sierranevadageotourism.org/content/cape-horn-and-the-transcontinental-railroad/sie3cf4cac0c3aa88ff9 tells us that "By September 1865, the Central Pacific Railroad had extended east from Sacramento as far as Camp 20, which was later renamed Colfax. The real assault on the Sierra Nevada began here. Colfax became a staging area for construction further uphill. Beyond Colfax, construction began in August 1865, with much of the basic work to Dutch Flat completed by year's end. Major obstacles remained at Long Ravine, Secret Ravine, and Cape Horn. Trestles bridged the ravines, but Cape Horn loomed forebodingly. At Cape Horn, aided by a veritable army of Chinese laborers, railroad engineers carved a roadbed around the steep peninsula high above the American River canyon. Construction took a year. More than 300 Chinese workers fell to their deaths in the process. This next article tells us that the "rumour" about Chinese labourers being lowered down in wicker baskets to do the drilling and dynamiting was exactly that - a RUMOUR. There is no truth in the matter. http://cprr.org/Museum/Cape_Horn.html In 1885 the Central Pacific Railroad was purchased by the Southern Pacific. This post card is definitely from after that year!!

The post card was printed and published by Edward H. Mitchell. He was a prolific post card printer, owning several printing companies in the San Francisco area. This back of the post card is very typical of what one of the backs of his post cards looked like.

California, Here I Come!

It is hard to tell from the picture on the front of this post card, but I think the locomotive is a "Ten Wheel" or 4-6-0 wheel configuration style of engine. The first of this style of locomotive was built in 1847 for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad by the Norris Brothers. This locomotive is parked in front of the new Southern Pacific depot in Santa Barbara, California. The following information can be found at https://www.independent.com/2017/03/23/southern-pacific-railroad-station-209-state-street/ After the Southern Pacific Railroad completed the Coast Line in 1901, making it possible for passengers to travel uninterrupted from Los Angeles to San Francisco, rail excursions became popular. The increased rail traffic, however, necessitated larger facilities in Santa Barbara. When the railroad realigned the local tracks in 1905, it also built a new passenger depot, the fourth to be constructed in the city since 1887, when the railroad first arrived. A local architect, Francis W. Wilson, active here from the 1890s to the early years of the 20th century, was engaged to do the new building. The Mission Revival style was selected so that the depot would “conform in general style to the Mission Architecture so appropriate and so popular in Southern California.” The station was sited to allow passengers and their escorts easy arrival and departure by way of State or Chapala streets.

The back of the post card only tells me that it was published between 1907 and 1915; it is from the Divided Back era of post cards. It is representative of the fact that the United States Postal Service finally allowed more than only the address on the back of the picture. You can see that there is a reminder that the message goes on the left and the address is to be written on the right-hand side of the back of the post card. I have looked in many places to see if there is any history on the publisher, California Sales Co. out of San Francisco. So far nothing!!!

I do know that it was published to promote the Southern Pacific Railroad. The theme "ON THE ROAD OF A THOUSAND WONDERS" was used by the Southern Pacific on many, many post cards.

The Southern Pacific's Daylight

Like all good-named trains, this one was a "Limited". The Southern Pacific

Railroad introduced the "Coast Line" between San Francisco and Los Angeles California on April 28, 1922. As illustrated by the novel, The Great Gatsby, the economy of the United States was recovering wonderfully after the ravages of "The Great War." It was time to provide a train service that connected these two cities to each other through a route that stayed as close to the Pacific Ocean as it

could. The "Daylight Limited" took only 12 hours to go from one city to the other; that is a "speedy" average of 33 miles per hour. When it began service the train only ran during the good Spring and Summer weather span and then, only once a day on Friday and Saturday. On March 21, 1937 the Railroad introduced the new

streamlined locomotives similar to those that you see in these post cards. The trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles (or vise versa) was reduced by 2 hours and 15 minutes. What was the fastest non-stop train route in the world became even faster. These new GS-2 locomotives were manufactured by Lima Locomotive Works. They were known, using the Whyte Identification system, as 4-8-4s or Northerns. I wrote about the Northerns at the end of July. These, for the Southern Pacific had 73.5 inch driver wheels and were capable of developing 4,500 horsepower at 55 miles per hour; they were also capable of a maximum speed of 90 miles per hour. These locomotives were quickly replaced by GS-3s, also from the Lima Locomotive Works. The new trains could go over 100 miles per hour. They were so popular that the Southern Pacific Railroad introduced other "Daylight Limited" trains like the Sacramento, San Juaquin and Shasta Limiteds.
As you can see by the front of the post cards, they reflect different eras of post card printing. The top one demonstrates the White Border Era, the middle post card is a classic Linen Card and the bottom one is from the
Photo-chrome era. These are the backs of the post cards:

Longest Wharf in the World

The “Longest Warf in the World”, as shown on this post card,

does not exist today. It was the victim of a power struggle among several parties. In the end, after all the fighting was over, it was slowly dismantled over time.

It was originally conceived by the Southern Pacific Railroad as a means to develop more business for them and for the city of Santa Monica. Los Angeles does not have a natural harbour. In order to create business, Collis Huntington (one of the big four that invested in the Central Pacific Railroad, which worked with the Union Pacific Railroad to build the transcontinental railroad) and John Jones (senator from Nevada and founder of Santa Monica) joined forces to come up with the idea of the wharf. It was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad between 1892 and 1894. The Pier wharf had a double track rail track lines to move cargo and freight on and off the pier quickly. When it opened it became the longest wharf in the world. It was almost a mile long at 4,700 feet.

During its lifetime it served both cargo and passenger trains by diverting shipping business from the nearby San Pedro Bay. A struggle between the newly opened wharf and the port of Los Angeles at San Pedro ended in 1897 when San Pedro was declared the port of choice. Construction of a breakwater in San Pedro started in 1899 and the Los Angeles Harbor Commission was founded in 1907. San Pedro Bay port area was annexed to Los Angeles in 1909. The Santa Monica wharf thus lost much of it traffic to San Pedro. Santa Monica almost became as important as the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro as major shipping port. Political struggle between the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Pacific Railroad put an end to the Santa Monica wharf.

It served as a cargo and passenger port until 1913, and in 1919 removal of the wharf started. The wharf, the 1000 foot tip of the pier, was removed by 1920. The remaining 3,600 feet of pier was used as a run-down fishing pier until 1933, when the remainder of the pier was removed.

While I am showing you the back of the post card here, the name of the publisher is on the front of the card in the left margin. The post card was published by the E. P. Charlton Company.

They existed from 1899 to 1912 in San Francisco, California. Earl Perry Charlton and Seymour Knox opened their first 5 & 10 cent store in Fall River, MA in 1890. Highly successful they had 9 east coast stores when they sold their business out to F. W. Woolworth in 1899. Charlton headed west with his proceeds to open up a new chain of stores. The Lewis & Clark exposition in 1905 provided impedes for him to start publishing postcards. Afterwards he continued to publish and distribute lithographic cards through his 52 chain stores until he merged with Woolworths in 1912. Charlton served there as Vice President.

Dizzying Heights 108 Years Ago

The Mount Lowe Railway was the third in a series of scenic mountain railroads in America created as a tourist attraction on Echo Mountain and Mount Lowe, north of Los Angeles, California. The railway, originally incorporated by Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe as the Pasadena & Mt. Wilson Railroad Co. existed from 1893 until its official abandonment in 1938, and had the distinction of being the only scenic mountain, electric traction (overhead electric trolley) railroad ever built in the United States. Lowe’s partner and engineer was David J. Macpherson, a civil engineer graduate of Cornell University. The Mount Lowe Railway was a fulfillment of 19th century Pasadenans to have a scenic mountain railroad to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains. The Railway opened on the 4th of July 1893.

What you see here is the second phase of three train trips that the tourists took to get to the Alpine Tavern at the top of the mountain. If it looks like the people are posing for a picture, that is because they are. Mr. Lowe hired a photographer to take pictures of the people after they got onto the cable car. Then, of course, the tourists could purchase the pictures once they were developed.

After having their pictures taken, they were taken up the mountain. That building is NOT the Alpine Tavern. The tourists disembarked at the top and transferred to a trolley that took them farther up the mountain into the wooded part. That is where they could find the Alpine Tavern and a friendly "pet bear".

The post card was mailed on May 2, 1910 - one hundred and eight years ago today. The writing is very small because she has a lot to say in a very small space. Basically, she is saying that she hasn't heard from her aunt and uncle, the recipients, [and she hopes it is not because they have been ill] and she wants to stay with them while she is in their area. She has been to California to recover from an illness, herself. She is on her way back home feeling better but without any more pounds on her frame. I know it is a she because she signs it your affectionate niece.... but her name is obscured by the top post mark.

110 Years Ago Today

When the railroad was built, the Dollarhide family owned the Siskiyou Pass wagon road, which became the Pacific Highway, U.S. Highway 99, and Interstate 5 later. They also owned a sawmill, for which they had originally purchased this right of way. The material for the pictured trestle came out of the nearby Dollarhide Sawmill, and Southern Pacific therefore named it "Dollarhide Trestle". Like all the wooden trestles along the Siskiyou Pass route, it was filled with rock and soil later, and is a dam today. On some maps, the location is still called "Dollarhide Curve". The nearby settlement "Dollarhide" has been abandoned, like most of the small settlements along the railroad pass route.
It must be a very steep grade. There are two engines at the front of this train and one at the back, pushing. The Oregon & California Railroad proposed an alternate route for the Oregon and California rail connection, which would have avoided Siskiyou Pass. However, Oregon politicians decided in favor of the present rail route. When Tunnel 13 was completed in 1887, beneath the Siskiyou Pass, there was finally a rail link between Oregon and California. In the 1920s, the Southern Pacific Railroad constructed the Natron Cutoff, a faster, cheaper route between the two states.

The message on the back is simply letting someone know that the writer arrived in Salem, Oregon safely and that the weather was much better than she expected.

115 Years Ago - Regarding a Bay Colt Horse

I know that the title of the blog says, "Bay Colt Horse" but that is not the subject of the picture on the post card. That is one of the topics in the message. This person is writing to George Cramer in Mapleton, Minnesota asking, "Have you driven your bay colt yet? He must be a dandy by this time." Mapleton is about 100 miles South-Southwest of Minneapolis. On Google maps it looks like it could still be farm country where they raise bay colts. Other interesting notes about the back of this post card:
1) The post card is published by Edward H. Mitchell from San Francisco. Edward H. Mitchell was one of the earliest and most prolific postcard publishers in the United States, and he was a San Franciscan. Cards bearing his name as publisher have been used, collected and studied since the end of the nineteenth century – the dawn of the Golden Age of Postcards. Several extensive checklists running to over three thousand entries have been compiled and updated. Mitchell published very early cards – colored vignettes – that were printed in Germany. He was publishing undivided back cards from a Post Street address before the earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed his printing operation and much of San Francisco. He continued to work out of his home until he built a plant and warehouse on Army Street. From there he published thousands of divided back cards including many views of San Francisco and the West, series on the Philippines and the Hawaiian Islands, high quality real photo views, comics, artistic designs and a series of early exaggerations of California fruits and vegetables. He printed cards for himself and other publishers, most notably to promote the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. Collectors and researchers of all Mitchell cards cannot help but feel a personal link with the publisher because he identifies himself on each of them as “Edward H. Mitchell”–  not “... Company,” not “... Inc.” just Edward H. Mitchell.”
2) Contained in the postal cancellation is an advertisement for the upcoming WORLD'S PANAMA PACIFIC EXPOSITION IN SAN FRANCISCO IN 1915. It was ostensibly advertised as a celebration of the that fact that the recently opened Panama Canal would connect the Pacific world to the rest of the world through the canal. Being a train post card blog spot, I have to mention that the C. P. Huntington, the first steam locomotive purchased for the Southern Pacific Railroad, was included in the exhibits.
3) If you look carefully at the cancellation mentioned in number 2, above, the I in SAN FRANCISCO is spelled with an exclamation mark !

I do not know how intentional that is. I can find no references to it on line or in any of the books that I have. I do know that the city had experienced a devastating earthquake less than a decade earlier and they were excited to show the world how they had recovered. Maybe this was a hint.

The picture on the front of this post card is from a mountain in the range that surrounds Las Angeles, California. I have written about Mt. Lowe before in this blog. That is the San Gabriel valley in the background. In order to get to this point in the Mount Lowe experience the riders would have taken a Pacific Electric trolley from Los Angeles to the base of the mountain. Then they took an incline railroad very nearly straight up the side of the mountain where they would then transfer to this trolley, which would then take them through the Granite Gate, across Las Flores Canyon and around the circular bridge in order to get to the Inn at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, today there is very little that remains of this marvel. You can read more about Mt. Lowe here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lowe_Railway