One Hundred and Two Years Ago Today

This post card was mailed to his father one hundred and two years ago today by Bert. I know this because the message reads: "Dear Father, This is certainly a beautiful city and a good place to live. Things are very lively here & so many tourist the street are certainly black. Your son Bert."

The post card was published by the Van Ornum Colorant Co. centered in Los Angeles, California.

From 1908 to 1921 they published lithographic view-cards, mostly depicting scenes of southern California. Their corporate symbol on the back of this post card is also the divider between the message and the address. It is a stylized palm tree, like so many that one can see in Southern California.

ANGEL'S FLIGHT was open from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. daily. The round trip fare was 5 cents. I have, in my collection of collectables, a certificate with the history of Angel's Flight and a promise to rebuild once Bunker Hill's community renovations are done. We purchased it on one of our trips to downtown. It is probably 50 years old itself. That is nothing compared to the age of this post card!

Built in 1901 by Col. J. W. Eddy, was a commercially operated miniature cable railway transporting passengers up and down the steep slope of Bunker Hill, between Hill and Olive Streets. The line climbed 315 feet up the 33 1/3 percent gradient from its starting point just south of the entrance to the Third Street Tunnel. Colonel Eddy promoted the line, which

opened in 1901. He had been a friend of Abraham Lincoln before the Civil War. Angels Flight was built to allow residents of the wealthy Bunker Hill neighborhood to get to and from the business district near the Plaza. Eddy also set up a telescope and later a tower to attract tourists. It was an observation tower that rose 100 feet above the tunnel mouth, and commanded a view of the San Gabriel Mountains. You can see it in the middle of the post card against the sky.

Two thirty-inch gauge counterbalanced cars, seating thirty-eight passengers each, operated on the line. The track had three rails with a passing siding in the middle. Only up-bound passengers had to pay. The city required the company to maintain a parallel stairway for people who didn't want to pay.

The Bunker Hill neighborhood gradually declined over the years until the 1960's when the city decided to "renew" it. The city promised to save the line's equipment and to rebuild it. The last day of service was on May 18, 1969. In early 1995, construction began at a new location, 4th and Hill Streets, using the original rail cars, station house, and the two end station arches. The original driving mechanism was put back, but is no longer used. The trestle and track structure are new. The line reopened on February 24, 1996. It was quickly shut down again when a person died on the funicular. The Angel's Flight can still be seen today, but it is not in use.

Copyright Infringed?

What a Difference a Decade Can Make!

These two post cards look extremely similar.

The titles are even almost the same title. If you look at the clouds in the background they are the same shape. There is a dead tree on the right-hand side of both post cards, too. Even the oranges are growing in the same spots on the trees. I have to admit that I much prefer the top card to the bottom one.

This is a good illustration of how either a) the post card publishers ignored the copyright rules, or b) how one company who owned the copyright sold the same picture to two different publishers. Both of these were common in the early days of post card publishing and selling.

In order to find the answer to this “question” one must turn the post cards over.

When you do, you can see that the top post card was mailed on May 6, 1911 (the clear postmark) and the bottom one was mailed around March 11, 1923 (the hand written date and only the year on the postmark).

The top card was published by the Newman Post Card Co. in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. Founded in 1907, they were 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. In the 1960s they were purchased by H.S Crocker and so they kind of still exist. It was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company out of Los Angeles. This company was in existence from 1908 to 1921. Knowing the dates of these two companies, we can date this card to between 1907 and 1921. We can, of course, date it even closer because the postmark says May 6, 1911.

The bottom card was published by the M. Kashower Co. of Los Angeles. They existed from 1914 to 1934. These publishers used a variety of printers to produce their comic cards, holiday greetings, and view-cards of southern California. This card, too, was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company. We could do the math to figure out between which years the post card could have been printed, but the postmark tells us it was mailed in 1923.

My conclusion to the question above is that the Van Ornum Company owned the print and sold it first to the Newman Post Card Company then to the M. Kashower Company. Maybe they got around any copyright agreements by changing the title on the front from “Entering Southern California” to simply “Entering California”.

Enjoying the Trip on Mt. Lowe!

Once one got to the top of Echo Mountain a person could enjoy a wonderful view of the San Gabriel Valley. Also, while up there, the tourist could enjoy a bit of a zoo, the Echo Mountain House, a casino, some gardens and an observatory. Combined, these were called the “White City on the Mountain”. On the other hand, the tourist could continue on the journey and go even higher up the set of mountains toward Mt. Lowe. Echo Mountain was about 3,200 feet above sea level; the Alpine Tavern – the destination on the rest of the journey – was at 4,420 feet above sea level. This thousand foot rise was accomplished through another trolley ride.

These post cards are pictures of the continuing trip. I have chosen these post cards because they are all from the same (divided back) era. The top card is of “Horseshoe Curve”. You can imagine how it got its name!! If you look carefully, you can see the track they were just on crossing a canyon. This trolley has just passed through the Cape of Good Hope and is headed toward the famous circular bridge (post cards to come). The middle post card is not specific about where on the line the picture was taken. You can see that there was a bit of engineering involved to keep the trolley on the side of the mountain and the electrical poles in position. The bottom post card shows one of the many bridges built to take the trolleys to the Alpine Tavern. This particular one is called the High Bridge. The backs of the post cards are interesting, too. They tell their own history.

The top two post cards were published by the Newman Post Card Company (NPC). They had office in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The top card alone was printed in Los Angeles by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company. They existed in Los Angeles between 1908 and 1921. Most of their work was printing scenes of Southern California. I bring up this point because the middle card was also published by the Newman Post Card Company. But, it was not printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company. It was printed in Germany. The number of the top post card (found on the back) is C8. The number of the middle card is C 26. In just a few print runs, the NPC discovered, like many publishers of post cards, that they could send their orders over to Germany and get them back – with good quality – for less than an American company would charge. This led to a glut of post cards on the market and a huge drop in prices (think tulip craze from Holland) with the resulting boon to consumers. We do not know who printed or published the bottom post card. But, we do see that the Mt. Lowe “corporation” has developed a trade mark that will appear on many, many, many post cards in the future. For more information about Mt. Lowe, check out this webite: www.mountlowe.org It is a site that belongs to an organization dedicated to keeping the legacy of Mt. Lowe and Thaddeus Lowe alive.