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

A Little Confusion

The title on this post card say that it is a picture of the First Bridge in Ogden Canyon, Utah. Ogden is the town at which the Lucin Cut-off begins as the trains head west across the Great Salt Lake. It was included on the Transcontinental Railroad by the Union Pacific Railroad when it raced across the country to meet the Central Pacific Railroad just north of Ogden at Promontory Point. However, back to the title. It says that this picture is taken in Ogden Canyon. When I searched for Ogden Canyon on line, I found a route that goes from a reservoir of water down the hill to Ogden. There was no set of tracks anywhere to be seen.

I think that this is actually a bridge on the Transcontinental Railroad in Weber Canyon. (By the way, Weber is pronounced "Weeber" in case anyone asks. It was named after a trapper who hunted in the area.) The Union Pacific followed this canyon into Ogden as it built the railroad across the country. It built many bridges and tunnels in order to make the journey safe for the steam engines.

This post card is also published by Edward H. Mitchell. This makes three weeks in a row that an Edward H. Mitchell post card is in this blog. He was a very prolific publisher. BUT, I notice that the way his name is displayed on the back of the card is different from the previous two cards. Usually, his name is up the left hand side of the post card. On this one it is on the bottom left. He is listed as the publisher, too, not the printer.

Part of the Whole

This post card is a depiction of a passenger train passing through the state of Nevada. The route was known as the Overland Express. This route was part of the first Transcontinental Railroad, of which the last spike was driven on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point in Utah.

Here it is west of Promontory Point, passing a water tower in Palisade Canyon in Nevada. The river to which it is running parallel is the Humbolt River. This river is interesting in as much as it doesn’t flow to anywhere. It actually evaporates before it can get to the ocean.

This is a map to give you an idea of where the Palisade Canyon is on the river.

The post card was published by the Newman Post Card Company out of Los Angeles, California. It was a publisher and printer of lithographic postcards, mostly views of southern California, with some cards of Hawaii and Nevada and the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

They were related to the O. Newman Company. Founded by Oscar Newman, this company published postcards in hand colored collotype and tinted halftones, consisting mostly of holiday cards and views of southern California. They also published a set on the San Francisco earthquake and the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition. Some of their cards were printed with the Newman Post Card Co. logo on them.

This section of the back of the post card indicates that it came from the Newman Post Card Company.
In the 1960s, the Newman Post Card Company was acquired by H.S. Crocker.

The post card itself, is from the Divided Back Era so it was printed and published between 1907 and 1915.