Angels Flight Railway in Los Angeles

Colette and I won a trip to Los Angeles through a radio station that we listen to and support. We stayed in a hotel in the financial district about 6 or 8 blocks from the Union Train Station. Just a few blocks away from our hotel was an even more famous (with me, at least) railway station: Angels Flight Railway.

When I was much younger… in the 1960s …our family went to the Angels Flight Railway and rode the funicular. I don’t remember how many times we went up and down Bunker Hill. It was great. I still have a ticket to ride Angels Flight from that time in my box of memorabilia. Originally, I kept it because I thought that we would someday return and ride it again. I didn’t know much about the railroad then. But, to date I have found lots of very interesting background and information.
Angels Flight was the result of the efforts of Colonel James Ward Eddy, a Civil War veteran. He began construction of Angels Flight (a two foot, six inch gauge railroad) on August 2, 1901. The railway ended up being a 33 percent grade for 315 feet. He opened the railway on December 31st of the same year. On Opening Day more than 2,000 people took the two funicular cars, Olivet and Sinai, between Hill and Olive Streets (two blocks) in downtown Los Angeles.

Colonel Eddy was born on May 30, 1832 in Java, New York and he died in Los Angeles on April 13, 1916. He moved to Illinois in 1853 where he studied law and became a lawyer and friend of Abraham Lincoln, so much so, that during the Civil War he enlisted in the Army and joined those whose job it was to protect Washington, D. C. After the war, he helped to build a branch line from Flagstaff, Arizona to Phoenix for the Santa Fe railroad. Then, he moved to Los Angeles in 1895. He was part of the project to bring power lines from the Kern River to L.A.
Six years after moving to Los Angeles, he built Angels Flight with his own money. It just so happens that this railway is very close to the area of town in which the colonel lived. The first rides cost one penny and they took passengers from one station to the next in about a minute.
In May of 1969 Angels Flight was closed down so the city government could redevelop the area and displace over 20,000 people. They put Angels Flight into storage. On February 24, 1996 Angels Flight was opened half a block south of the original site. Since then it has had several accidents and many safety violations. Today, it sits on display for all to see and none to ride.
You can get more information about Angels Flight on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_Flight)or at http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/will-angels-flight-ever-roll-again/article_f99ee604-bc49-11e3-abe6-0019bb2963f4.html or at http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/23044083
These two post cards show Angels Flight in its early years. Both post cards are from before March 1, 1907. The backs of them clearly show that one can only write the address on that side. The one on the left, above, is by the Detroit Publishing Co. There is a great source of information about the Detroit Company at (http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/dpc/how/animas3.asp and at http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersd.html The right-hand one is published by the M. Rieder Company who published view-cards of the West and of Native Americans. His cards were printed in Germany except those contracted out to Edward H. Mitchell in the United States.
The left one below is also from Detroit Publishing and the right-hand one is from M. Rieder.

The Middle of Nowhere?

I have heard many places being referred to as being "in the middle of nowhere". The picture of the canyon on the front of this post card looks like it could easily join the "middle of nowhere" group of locations. Fortunately, the caption on the post card saves the day.

It isn't in the middle of nowhere; it is in Rainbow Canyon, Nevada. Unfortunately, the picture does not seem to do the beauty of the canyon justice. I looked up Rainbow Canyon on the internet and the website "Exploring Nevada" was able to provide this information:

The Rainbow Canyon Scenic Drive is a relaxing and enjoyable ride on a paved road through Rainbow Canyon, a deep canyon located just south of the town of Caliente, Nevada on State Highway 317. Rainbow Canyon lies between the Delamar Mountains to the west and the Clover Mountains to the east. The canyon is quite deep and steep, with the canyon lying three thousand feet below the higher peaks of the mountains. Yet what makes Rainbow Canyon an enjoyable drive isn’t tall mountains, but instead the colored rock and interesting rock formations along the road. Throughout the drive, the traveler will see large formations of red rock and rock formations that defy easy description. Additionally, and in contrast to the surrounding mountains, the traveler will come across many cottonwood trees. The reason for all the cottonwood trees is because the drive follows a wash, called the Meadow Valley Wash, for its entire length. This wash usually has no more than a trickle of water in it, but collects enough water during heavy rain events to allow cottonwood trees to grow along its banks. The Rainbow Canyon Scenic Drive closely follows the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad for its entire length. This stretch of the Union Pacific is extremely busy, sometimes averaging one train every twenty minutes or so. There are also numerous railroad tunnels and deep cuts along the railroad, providing the rail fan with excellent train watching and photography.

The railroad referred to on the front of the post card is the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. Wikipedia provides this information: Reporting mark SLR the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities, via Las Vegas, Nevada. Incorporated in Utah in 1901 as the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, the line was largely the brainchild of William Andrews Clark, a Montana mining baron and United States Senator. Clark enlisted the help of Utah's U.S. Senator Thomas Kearns, mining magnate and newspaper man, to ensure the success of the line through Utah. Construction of the railroad's main line was completed in 1905. Company shareholders adopted the LA&SL name in 1916. The railway was also known by its official nickname, "The Salt Lake Route".

The railroad had a run in with the Union Pacific Railroad early in its building. Luckily, they came to an amicable agreement about operations. The result of the relationship with the Union Pacific Railroad is evident in the paragraph above that says that only the Union Pacific Railroad is running trains in the canyon today.

The post card was printed by M. Reider Publishing Company out of Los Angeles California with connections to printing presses in Dresden, Germany. This company printed and published view-cards of the West and of Native Americans. The cards were printed in Germany except those contracted out to Edward H. Mitchell in the United States. The company existed from 1901 to 1915. I am dating this particular post card as being from prior to the March 1, 1907 era. There is no room on the back for a message.

Tamalpais Scenic Railway

The engine pictured on the front of this card is a Shay.

A Class B Shay engine had 3 cylinders, which you can clearly see on the side of this engine and two trucks. It is one of 1,480 Class B Shay engines built between 1878 and 1945. They were built by a company that changed names three times before it finally became the Lima Locomotive Works, Inc. in March of 1916. This particular engine was known as Number 646 by the Lima Locomotive and Machine Company as it was known in 1901. This locomotive was finished on April 15, 1901. The three cylinders were 10 inches in diameter with a 10 inch stroke. The wheel diameter was only 28 inches. It ran on coal, of which it could carry almost 2 tons, and it could hold 1238 gallons of water. It weighed 61,810 pounds when it came off the assembly floor. It worked at the Tamalpais Scenic Railway as Engine #3 until 1915. It changed ownership 6 more times before it was sold for scrap on October 10, 1929.

During its time a trip on the Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railroad was a favorite city getaway for San Franciscans. The railway was an immediate success when it opened for business in 1896 and was dubbed by locals as the “Crookedest Railroad in the World” because of its 281 curves in just over eight miles of track. At the Mill Valley train depot this Shay steam engine’s whistle signaled the beginning of the train ride to the top of Mount Tamalpais. Passengers breathed the fresh mountain air from open cars as the train climbed to an elevation of 2,500 feet at a speed of 10 miles per hour. At the summit people marveled at views of the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Locomotives were positioned on the downhill end of the train and pushed the passenger cars uphill, allowing for unobstructed vistas. Watching the engines push from below was an added spectacle for riders, who could see the train’s gears and engineer at work. Ridership declined in later years. By 1920, automobiles could drive to the mountain summit on twisty roads. A fire on Mount Tamalpais in 1929 left many of the rail ties damaged or destroyed. Rail managers lost hope for profitability and abandoned reconstruction efforts. The last train traveled up the mountain on October 31, 1929. Tracks were pulled up in 1930, signaling the end of travel to Muir Woods on the Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway.

This post card was published by M. Rieder from Los Angeles, California. It is number 4002 in their series of post cards. It was printed in Germany (so, again, before the beginning of World War One - see last week's post). This card is postmarked June 18, 1909 so we know how old it is.

The writer is telling the receiver of the post card that he is receiving $2.50 per day for 8 hours of work per day. "Easy Money", he writes.

Not Salt Lake Utah Exactly

This post card is showing the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge, spanning the Santa Anna River, west of Riverside, California.

This bridge has significance because the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge was part of an overall plan initiated by Senator William Andrews Clark to connect the rail centers of Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, thereby creating a route of strategic importance for the shipping and transportation of materials. The Bridge was also, at one time, the largest concrete bridge on earth.

When built in 1903 it was billed as the largest concrete viaduct in the world. It is 984 feet (300 m) long, 17 feet (5.2 m) wide, averages 55 feet (17 m) in height, and contains about 14,000 cubic feet (400 m3) of concrete. As a comparison, Glenfinnan Viaduct (the "Harry Potter" viaduct) was built in 1901 and is 1,035 feet (315 m) long and up to 100 feet (30 m) high.

The post card is from the divided back era, so it is from around 1907 to 1915. M. Reider (in business from 1901 to 1915)printed and published view-cards of the West and of Native Americans. His cards were printed in Germany except those contracted out to Edward H. Mitchell in the United States. On E-bay, there is a post card published by Edward H. Mitchell (EHM) that uses the exact same picture on the front, but says it is published by EHM. I am trying to purchase the card to add to my collection!

I am sorry about the quality of the pictures of this post card. The program and my new Windows 8 don't seem to like each other. I can scan the post card onto my computer with my trusty Epson V500 scanner, but I can't get it onto this program from there. So, I held up the post card to the webcam on my computer and took a photo of the post card directly into this blog. Hopefully, things will get better.

More about the Circular Bridge

These two post cards are, again, pictures of The Circular Bridge.

The top card has the primitive type of trolley that was first used on the Mt. Lowe Railway to take passengers from the top of the Mt. Lowe incline to the Alpine Tavern. The caption under the picture says, “Car on Circular Bridge, Alpine Section, Mount Lowe R. R., Cal.” I lived in southern California for at least 15 years. I don’t recall the tops of these mountains being very alpine. By definition “Alpine” means similar to the Alps. I have seen the Alps a couple of times and they do not remind me of southern California. I believe this nomenclature was a bit of a tourist attraction liberty. What I like about this first picture is the view below them to our left. It is the “settlement” that was built at the top of the incline. Once can clearly see Echo Mountain House and the observatory. The brown scar on the side of the hill is the rail line on which the trolley has just come. I also notice that the person sitting in the front seat closest to the drop-off is a woman wearing a fur coat and a fancy hat. I am not sure if she is carrying a large, white purse or has a dog on her lap. The bottom post card does not actually have a train on it. This is probably the first post card in my blog that does not. However, I could not resist showing the picture that shows the valley, the settlement on top of Echo Mountain, the train tracks and the circular bridge. These two men could be surveyors making sure that the construction is correct. It does look like the one in the background is carrying a roll of blueprints. Now to the backs of the post cards

The top card was used as a promotional item. I have heard of companies purchasing post cards and sending them out as cheap advertising. This is the only example of that in my collection! And look at the price of the canned fruit… 24 cans of fruit for $4.75 AND they pay the freight. The card was published by M. Rieder of Los Angeles. We have seen his cards before. The company only lasted from 1901 to 1915. So, that means that this post card was printed sometime between 1901 and March 1, 1907. The words “Post Card” at the top middle of the card are superimposed on top of an eagle. Where the eagle’s feet normally are, there are two letters. They are a C and a K on top of each other. I am thinking that this is logo of the printer of the card from Germany. I do not have any proof of such yet. The bottom card was also printed by M. Reider. This post card, too, was printed before March 1, 1907 so it is of a similar age to the one above.

Twins, but not Identical

These two post cards have the exact same picture on their fronts. This isn’t a matter of copyright infringement; they were both published by the same company. On the way from Echo Mountain to the Alpine Tavern the trolley had to make a turn around the top of a smaller mountain top. As the builders rounded the corner, they ran into a very large vein of granite. There was only one way to get to the other side. They blasted the granite with dynamite. To help put this work into perspective, it took the team eight months to get through to the other side. See:

What you are looking at in these two pictures is the successful result. It is known as the “Granite Gate”. Both cards label it as such and tell us that it is part of the “Alpine Extension”, what Thaddeus Lowe called the trolley line that ran from his settlement at Echo Mountain to the new Alpine Tavern. The post card on the left tells us that it was published by M. Rieder of Los Angeles, it is card No. 3042, and it was made in Germany. Someone has written on it “Ostrich Farm Nov. 1904”. The post card on the right only tells us that it is a picture of the “Granite Gate, Alpine Extension, Mt. Lowe Rd.” I have to admit that this card seems to have a sharper picture than the first. Printing techniques seem to have improved through the eight years between printings.

The back of the top card, which is the left card above, shows us that this comes from before March 1, 1907. The back has the clear message, “THIS SIDE IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE ADDRESS.” It also has the fact that it was made in Germany printed on the left side. We can believe that the date written on the front is a legitimate date of the card’s existence because it was printed before 1907. The right-hand card is from the “divided back” era. It tells us that the right half of the card is for the address only and the left side is for correspondence. The left also tells us the M. Reider of Los Angeles was the publisher who had it printed in Germany. This card is also numbered No. 3042. At the bottom someone has used a rubber stamp with the rotating dates to stamp “MAR 27 1912” in burgundy ink. An interesting observation about this card is that in the box for the stamp, there is, not only the postage rates, but upside on the top is the number “No. 14568”. I have no idea what that could be. If any of you know, please share the information with us.

On the way to the Tavern

Happy Birthday to you! Today is my sister Mary’s birthday. This information will become significant later in this post. We are still in Southern California. We are still on Mt. Lowe. Today’s two post cards contain pictures of the trip from Echo Mountain to the Alpine Tavern.

The card on the left is the older of the two. It is from the “divided back” era. It has a title in red ink in the top, right-hand corner of the post card. It reads: “On the Road to Alpine Tavern, Mt. Lowe Division, Pacific Electric Ry. Los Angeles, Cal.” You can see that part of the mountain was very covered in tall trees. They look like pine, spruce and live oaks. At the bottom of the card is a curve. It is probably horseshoe curve. It was located toward the top of Los Flores Canyon and was on the trolley line to the Alpine Tavern. The post card on the right is of later vintage. It is from the “white border” era. The title at the bottom of the card in the white border (a very good reason to have a white border) reads: “CLIMBING LOS FLORES CANYON, MT. LOWE, CALIFORNIA.” It shows the trolley going through a more rugged part of the trail to the Alpine Tavern. After the horseshoe curve and the circular bridge (coming soon to this blog) the trolley climbed, went around a rocky point and the top of this hill, then it headed back in the direction from which it came toward the tavern at the base of Mt. Lowe.

The post card at the top in this view is the one on the left in the previous view. It was published by M. Rieder, a company headquartered in Los Angeles. The card itself was printed in Germany – very famous at this time for their quality of post cards. It was also prior to World War I so trade with Germany was fine. This is card No. 3790. You can see that it has a divided back. The right side was for the stamp, the postmark and the address – ONLY. The left side was for the message, the very short message. In a posting coming up we will see a similar card but just a wee bit older than this one. No message was allowed in this space, either. The card on the left looks to like it is a post card printed by Curt Otto Teich’s company. At the top is the number R-53774. If it is a card by Curt Teich it could be from around 1915, when the first started printing the white border cards. There is no other indicator on the card (unless maybe I lift the stamp) to indicate who printed or published it. You can see that the Mt. Lowe insignia is clearly printed on the back, top left corner of the card. We know for sure that this card existed on December 2, 1922. That is the postmarked date. It was mailed from Los Angeles, California to Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada at 12:30 PM. Now for the significance of my sister’s birthday: This card was mailed about 3 decades to the day before she was born. So, it almost like today is both my sister’s birthday and this post card’s birthday – sort of…

Clouds or Smog?

Are Those Clouds or Is It Smog? I can remember going up to Crystal Lake for a family day outing on a very hot summer day. When we were coming back down, we stopped at a viewpoint to see a panorama of the San Gabriel Valley. What we saw was a sea of grey with islands popping up here and there through the mist. We could even see Catalina Island from where we were on the mountain. This was in the 1960s.

Today’s post cards reminded me of this family outing. Both post cards share the same picture. As one looks at them, one’s eyes are first drawn to the rail lines cutting their path through the side of the mountain. Following the lines, one can see that there is a trolley car making its way up. It does not say so on the cards, but I am guessing that this is at, or near, horseshoe curve. AS one looks at the rest of the cards, one can see that there is a horizon, an island, so to speak, and something between the trolley car and the “island”. Those are clouds, according to the post cards. And they might well be. The top card has a caption at the bottom that reads: Mt. Lowe Ry., Above the Clouds. This card is from before March 1, 1907. The automobile and industry have not had enough time to wreak havoc on the atmosphere. Thy probably are clouds. This post card has a note on the back that states clearly that “THIS SIDE IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE ADDRESS.” It was published by M. Rieder in Los Angeles, even though it was printed in Germany. The post card number is also on the back: No. 135.

The bottom post card was also published by M. Rieder in Los Angeles. However, it is a couple years younger than the top post card. This card was mailed from San Bernardino at 5:00 AM on March 30, 1909. It went from there all the way to St. Paul, Minnesota. It was sent to a Miss Edna Good at 753 Cypress St. This is about 2 miles northeast of downtown and where the river takes a turn to head back south again. It is 3 blocks south of Phalen Boulevard and some train tracks. It is from the “divided back” era. The back isn’t very divided, though. There is only a thin rectangle on the left side of which one third is taken up telling you who printed the card, where it was printed (Germany), the number (no. 3146) of the card, and the fact that that little space can only be used to write the Name and Address of the sender “(NO OTHER WRITING)” That soon changed. The M. Rieder Company didn’t last very long (1901-1915). They printed and published view-cards of the West and of Native Americans. His cards were printed in Germany except those contracted out to Edward H. Mitchell in the United States. Both of these cards were printed in Germany.

Variations on a Theme

These four post cards have similar pictures of the same view. You have even seen this scene in the previous posts of May 22nd and 31st. I have 17 different post cards with this picture, or a slight variation of it, on the front. I chose this one because it has a very sharp image on it. It is beautifully colored, too.

My understanding is that the printing of color post cards of this era were that the photographs were printed on post card stock in black and white. The publishers sent to the printers a color palate and notes to the printers telling them what colors the various parts of the photograph were supposed to be. This post card looks like it could have been printed in color directly onto the card stock. The borders between the colors are sharp and the shades are subtle. It is a tribute to the technology of the day! Of course, this is a picture of the Incline on the Mt. Lowe Railway. Just like in the picture from May 31st, this is the cable car waiting to go up the mountain. Just like in the picture from May 31st, they are waiting to have their picture taken. Unlike that post card, you can’t see the photographer, but his camera is set up at the very bottom of the picture, a wee bit to the right of center. He might be standing in front of the camera with a paper taking notes (perhaps the names of his subjects so he can post their pictures later with their names attached). At the bottom left of the card is the waiting area and the trolley car that brought the tourists up the hill.

As I turn the post card over I notice that it is from the pre-March 1, 1907 era. That is all that I can tell from the back of the card. The words “POST CARD” and a logo are in the top middle of the back, but I haven’t been able to identify the publisher from these indicators, yet. I do have several other post cards of other scenes with a similar logo on them. But, like this card, no solid information to lead me to the publisher or the printer. Holding the card in my hand, I can feel that the surface is uneven. This card has been embossed. The picture on the front has been raised so that the card is sort of three dimensional. These other three cards are pictures of the same scene. I am including them so that you can see that in the 17 cards of this scene, there are differences. On this second card you can see that it was not a very busy day. There is no one sitting in the cable car. There are two trolley cars sitting at the waiting area, but there are no tourists. Perhaps they were told to wait to the side while this picture of the Incline was being taken. Perhaps they are all at the top already.

On the back of the card, one can tell that, again, this is from the early era. The date on the front and the postmark tell us that this was written and mailed in 1905, May 25th to be exact. That makes this card 107 years and 9 days old today!! The message on the front says “Why don’t you write to your Western friends?” It is being sent to West Lynn, Mass. This city is northeast of Boston very close to Nahant Bay. If one were to drive from Boston to Lynn and keep going past Lynn about twice the distance, one would come to the town where I live for a year from September 1972 to September 1973: Ipswich.

In this third picture we are starting to gather more tourists.

There are three of them sitting in the cable car waiting to have their pictures taken and to be whisked away to the top of the Incline. It is hard to know that there is a lodge up there waiting for the tourists. But, up on the first bump to the right of where the cable car is taking these tourists, there is another little bump. This is Echo Lodge. The message on the front of the card reads, “I went up Mt. Lowe about a week ago and got back alive as you see. I’m hoping those ‘cow sheds’ will not be as full of fleas as cow-sheds usually are. If they are, I think I will camp on the lawn. I’m coming home to work (not rest) in a week – that is if I get there without drowning, etc. Edna Child…” As I turn the card over, not only do I notice that it was mailed on September 5, 1906,

I see that this is being sent to Mr. Earle L. Menker at 354 S. 10th Street in San Jose, California. When I look up that address I see that it is right next to San Jose State University. If the residents of the house sit on their front steps, they will see Campus Village B of the University. San Jose State University began San José State University was founded in 1857 as Minns' Evening Normal School, and is the oldest public school of higher education in the state. The university now offers more than 134 bachelor's and master's degrees with 110 concentrations. See this page for more information: http://www.sjsu.edu/about_sjsu/history/timeline/ This final post card for this blog post is a very good one.

It, too, is a very sharp picture (like the first one above). The 8 people in the picture are rather relaxed and are looking at a camera. But, they are looking up at the camera that took this picture, not at the one that takes the touristy pictures. Hopefully, you can see the American flag attached to the top of the car. There were 45 states because this picture was taken pre-March 1, 1907. You will see that when we turn the card over. Theodore Roosevelt was in office and he objected to the plan that Oklahoma residents had for entering the Union as two different States, a State of Sequoyah and a State of Oklahoma. Roosevelt insisted that the Oklahoma Indian Territory come in as a single unified state, or not at all. Utah had become the 45th US State on 4 January 1896 and Oklahoma finally became the 46th US State on 16 November 1907. You can read more here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_US_states_were_there_in_1905#ixzz1t68X1Ns6 If you look at the top of the Incline, we can finally see the Echo Lodge. It is the point on the bump to the right of the top of the Incline. As I look at the post card with my giant magnifying glass, I can see that the powerhouse and other buildings are right at the top of the Incline.

This card was published by M. Rider (1901 to 1915) in Los Angeles but printed in Germany. Germany had developed great technology for printing color post cards and it was cheaper for the Americans to ship orders over there (not by plane, either) and get them back then it was to have them printed in the US. This situation eventually changed – just before World War One.

Smile!

Have you ever been at a tourist attraction or activity and someone from the amusement park or the company hosting the activity takes your picture? I remember being at an amusement park (although I can’t remember which one) and as we came over the top of the roller coaster type of mechanism (perhaps a log ride somewhere) they took our picture. I have also been rafting in Jasper National Park in Canada and someone on the side of the road took our picture. When we returned to the rafting company store, or when we got off the ride our pictures were there on display for us to purchase.

The people riding the cable car up The Mount Lowe Incline had this same opportunity. This post card is a picture at the bottom of The Incline. To the left in the picture you can see the trolley cars that brought passenger to the bottom of the incline from Pasadena and Los Angeles. Obviously, in the middle is the incline itself, 3000 feet of it. At the bottom of the incline is a cable car full of people. They are lined up properly, one above the other and next to each other. There is a person standing next to the car facing downhill. The passengers are facing backwards so that they can see the beautiful valley over which they are about to ascend. But, they are also looking directly into the camera that is about to take their picture. You can’t see it very well on the scan, so in this second view of the same card I have put a little arrow in orange. It is pointing to the camera and to the photographer. He is dressed in a brown suit with the professional felt hat on his head.

This next view, is from my camera. I used it to take a picture of the post card while I zoomed in on the bottom where the man stands. Here you can clearly see the man hard at work.

This card is published by M. Rieder of Los Angeles. I think that, if you have read my previous few blogs, you have heard enough about M. Rieder. What I want to point out to you today is the logo in the top, middle of the card. I have posted about it before. I want to know what it means and where it comes from. I know that the eagle is a symbol of Germany and that M. Rieder had their cards printed in Dresden, Germany. I wonder if the EKC in the middle, where the bird’s feet should be, are the initials of the printer in Germany?? Meanwhile, this card is from pre-March 1, 1907. There is only allowance for the address on the back of the card. Any message will have to be squeezed onto the front of the card, where the photographer can record it for posterity.

San Gabriel Valley

This card is a good example of why people went to Mt. Lowe’s attractions.

Echo Mountain is right in the middle of the card. It is a white blotch on this card but it represents the powerhouse, a Chalet, the Echo Mountain House, casino, the observatory, residential car barn, gardens, gas holder, zoo and water system. This is where the incline railway would take people after travelling to the foot of it in Rubio Canyon. People could go there a couple of thousand feet above sea level to see the beautiful San Gabriel Valley sprawled out before them and to escape the heat of the summer. It was opened all year round, but I am thinking that most people went there in the summer. You can see that the valley was still pretty much agricultural (all the green on the card) with a city here and there. Pasadena could be at the bottom right of the card just over the mountain scene. And, there is city on the right edge of the card halfway up the side. Notice the lack of smog or smoke trapped in the valley. This was taken in the early 1900s and probably in the spring when the air is still clear (I believe that they still have days like that today). You may notice that there are train tracks in the mountains. There are more cards to come to explain this phenomenon.

This card was also published by M. Rieder. However, it says the company is in Los Angeles and the card was made in Germany. The last card had the company in both LA and Dresden. The company was in Los Angeles from 1901 to 1915. This card is from the pre-March 1, 1907 era also. The right 3/4s of the card are for the address and the postmark only. On the left of the card the sender was allowed to write his or her address and as the card says: “(NO OTHER WRITING)”

A Piece of Southern California Train History

Los Angeles is surrounded by mountains. These mountains are part of the reason that there is so much smog in the valleys. I remember as kid driving up to Crystal Lake. On the way down we stopped at a lookout point. We were above the smog. Looking out all we could see was the top of the smog with hills popping up out of it looking like islands. We have also been up there looking out over the valleys when it was so clear that we could see Catalina Island. We were not the first people to think that going up into the mountains on a hot summer day would be a good idea. In fact, a person named Thaddeus Lowe thought it was a very good idea back in the late 1800s. His idea was to build a “tourist trap” at the top of the mountain to draw people up to enjoy themselves, each other and the view. It was called Echo Mountain and the "tourist trap" was called Echo Mountain House.What is known today as Mt. Lowe was once Oak Mountain. "Mount Lowe located above Pasadena, California is part of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California. It was originally named Oak Mountain, but was renamed for Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, who built the Mount Lowe Railway to its foot in 1896. The record of the naming was made official by Andrew McNally, the famous Chicago map printer, who promised to print "Mount Lowe" on all his maps," (see http://www.mtlowe.net/) We are going to be vising the Mt. Lowe Railway through post cards in the next few blog posts. What we will be seeing was opened on the 4th of July in 1893 and made its last run on December 5th of 1937 – a 44 and a half year run. But look at what they accomplished in that short time span! Mr. Lowe only owned the railway for a short 8 years. He had to sell it to Henry Huntington of the Pacific Electric Railway.

In 1889, David MacPherson, a former Santa Fe Railway civil engineer, planned a steam powered railroad into the mountains behind Pasadena. In 1891, MacPherson and Thaddeus Lowe, a public figure from the Civil War, incorporated the Pasadena and Mt. Wilson Railway. Land near Mt. Wilson was unavailable, so Lowe ran electic trolley cars through Altadena into Rubio Canyon. At the terminus, Lowe built a pavilion transfer station and "The Great Incline" (see: http://www.mtlowe.net/brief_history.htm) I am beginning with this post card because it shows the mountain so clearly. The title in red under the picture says that it is a view of “Mt. Lowe Div. Pacific Electric Ry., California” You won’t be able to see it on this scan, but there is a large white building on the knob to the right of the hill where this incline leads. The incline is about 3000 feet long. Echo Mountain House is where everyone is headed. Mr. Lowe and company built a powerhouse, a Chalet, the Echo Mountain House, a casino (used as a dance pavilion and dormitory), an observatory, residential car barn, gardens, gas holder, zoo and water system. "The White City on the Mountain" was world famous. [see http://www.mtlowe.net/brief_history.htm] for more details. In its later years, the Mt. Lowe Railway will add an Alpine Tavern on a wicked set of tracks farther into the mountains. The tracks and the tavern will be featured in later posts.

This post card is from the pre-March 7, 1907 era. The entire space for a message is at the bottom of the front of the card. Max has made the best of it and told his “mother and folks” that “The ride up Mt. Lowe is most beautiful and enjoyed it very much.” He wrote this card on my older brother’s birthday 45 years before he was born. It was mailed the next day, August 23rd, in 1906. This year the card turns 112 years old. The card was published by M. Rieder of Los Angeles and Dresden. Dresden is a city in Germany. In these days the postcard printers in Germany were more experienced and produced better cards than those in the United States. So, many companies relied on their German counterparts to produce the post cards that they sold. This is a black and white card and the Germans excelled at the color post card production. We will see some of those in the near future in these blogs about Mt. Lowe. M. Rieder Company existed in Los Angeles from 1901 to 1915. They mostly published post cards of scenes from the western U.S. [see http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersr1.html] for more details. They contracted their printing work out to Germany and the famous and prolific post card publisher from California, Edward H. Mitchell. An interesting little note: the words POST CARD are prominent on the top, middle of the back of the card. They have “translated” those words into POSTAL CARD and CARTE POSTALE just below in parenthesis. Max wrote this to his family who lived at 1616 East 68 Street, in Chicago, IL. I looked it up on the internet. They lived close to the Illinois-Indiana border just east of where interstates 90 and 94 come together today. If they live there today, they are a 12 block walk to the South Shore Cultural Centre.