Riding into History

The White Mountain Railroad was the only steam powered passenger tourist train in the state of Arizona. It traveled over some of the most beautiful country of the Southwest U.S. The railroad used two engines. Engine number 36, formerly ran on the Sierra Railroad in California. It was built in 1930 as a Mikado (2-8-2). Engine number 100, seen here on the front of this post

card, was also a Mikado. It was built by Baldwin in June of 1926 and was used on the Santa Maria Valley Railroad, also in California. Here is a little bit of history about the White Mountain Scenic Railroad as taken from this website: www.islandpondrailroad.com/wmsrr/wmsrr.htm The White Mountain Scenic Railroad August 14, 1974. In the last days of the White Mountain Scenic Railroad. The train began operating north from Pinetop Lakes, Arizona, to Bell. This is a much less scenic section of track compared to the former stretch from McNary to a picnic spot the crews called "Apache Hilton". In the very early days, trains actually went as far as an old logging camp called Maverick. All of those days are long gone. The railroad was pulled up on the Fort Apache reservation and both Mikados #36 (ex-Sierra Railroad) and #100 (ex-Santa Maria Valley) were trucked to Heber City, Utah to pull the "Heber Creepers". Both locomotives are now stored, allegedly on display, in poor condition on the Kepner estate in Merrill, Oregon.

The post card was published by Arizona Pictures, Box 635, Sedona, Arizona. With generic words like these in the name, I could not find anything about the history of the publisher. The photo was taken by Merle Porter. Porter, Merle (1907-1988) Merle was known as “the postcard king of the west.” He produced and distributed his “photo-color” postcards under the name Royal Pictures of Colton, California. Porter traveled nine months out of the year for over fifty years – putting as many as one thousand miles a week on his Ford Econoline van – photographing the historic sites, monuments, architecture, highways, infrastructure, oil fields, and landscapes of the western United States in color using his Speed Graphic view camera. While traveling he distributed his postcards to motels, souvenir shops, and gas stations, circulating one million postcards per year at the height of his career. Porter wrote lengthy and descriptive captions full of historical facts and local lore to be printed on the back of each postcard. This information was taken from this website: https://www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=8486&t=people

It was a beautiful ride.

Before I went to the East Coast to go to college from the Los Angeles area, my Dad and I took a trip to Northern Arizona, where I grew up. As part of that trip we took a scenic train ride through the White Mountains area. It was a side gig for the Apache Railway Company. Their main line of income was logging trains.

The train on the front of this post card is the train that my Dad and I took back in the early 1970s. This website will tell you more of the history of the Apache Railway: https://www.american-rails.com/apache.html The common-carrier Apache Railway was originally built to handle logs and paper products, owned by the Apache Logging Company. The history of the Apache Railway begins on September 5, 1917 when construction commenced from a connection with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway at Holbrook building southward to tap timber reserves for a paper mill. A year later, almost exactly to the day on September 6, 1918 the railroad completed its line as far south as Snowflake and two years after that in the summer of 1920 the route was opened to McNary, a total of 72 main line miles. The railroad would reach a peak size of 140 miles, which included several branches and spurs. In 1924 the railroad was acquired by the Cady Logging Corporation. From October 1, 1931, until 1936, amid the Great Depression, the APA was placed in receivership. In 1935 it again changed ownership to Southwest Lumber Mills. Finally, in 1960 the railroad was purchased by Southwest Forest Industries. The Apache owned steam locomotives but was well-known during its diesel years for operating venerable American Locomotive Company products. A tourist railroad, the White Mountain Scenic Railroad, operated steam powered passenger excursions over the Southwest Forest Industries-owned line from McNary to the logging camp of Maverick, AZ, beginning in 1964. As track conditions deteriorated, the excursions were cut back in later years to a point about half of the way to Maverick. In the final years, it operated north from Pinetop Lakes to a place called Bell Siding on U.S. Route 60. In 1976, the White Mountain Scenic Railroad ceased operations and moved its equipment to Heber City, Utah to be used on an excursion there known as the "Heber Creeper." In 1984 it abandoned its line south of Snowflake, reducing its property to 33 miles. The railroad was hit hard by the 2012 closure of its largest customer, the paper mill in Snowflake.

The post card was published by Norm's Publishing House. The company's address was 610 McLellan in Mesa, Arizona. The interesting thing about the company listing on this post card is the phone number. "... for a train ride on the steam powered WHITE MOUNTAIN SCENIC RAILROAD, Phone 245 or write Box 496, McNary, Arizona. The phone number only has three digits. This post card is a photochrome sytle of card. They first came out in 1939. The address of the railroad does not have a zip code; those came out in 1963. Given these facts, I would guess that this card is from the late 1950s or the very early 1960s.

A Trip to New Hamshire

This post card shows a steam engine coming around the corner in the Crawford Notch. Crawford Notch is the steep and narrow gorge of the Saco River in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was discovered in 1771 by Timothy Nash.

Although it was originally called the White Mountain Notch, it is called CRAWFORD notch today because it drains toward the Crawford Brook watershed. The brook was named after Abel Crawford, an early explorer and settler from the late 1700s and early 1800s.

This hand drawn map gives you a general idea of where Crawford Notch is in New Hampshire.

The White Mountains were heavily logged from about 1875 to 1925 or so. Logging activity was always an invitation to build railroads. And, sure enough, four railroads provided the logging services in this area of New Hampshire: the Little River Railroad, the Saco Valley Railroad (1875 – 1898), the Sawyer River Railroad (1867 to 1927), and the Zealand Valley Railroad (1885 – 1897). I am not sure which one is represented in the picture on the front of this post card. It might even be from the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad.

You can see a sign in the bottom right hand corner of the picture that says, “THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT”.

The following is taken from the website: http://whitemountainhistory.org/English_Jack.html

The "Hermit of Crawford Notch" was 85 years old when he died on April 24, 1912 and his obituary appeared in the New York Times. He was known at all as English Jack; his real name was Jack Vials. Not a whole lot is known about Jack. He lived in a ramshackle home that he built himself and called his "ship". It was close to the Crawford House and apparently there was a path to his house from the railroad tracks at the Gate of the Notch. Postcards show the track and a sign indicating that Jack lived there. He was well known to tourists who frequently visited. He entertained his visitors with stories of his seafaring days and he sold them some of his homemade beer.

It makes me think of the Children’s Tale “The House that Jack Built”. He served beer, which takes malt to make, probably attracted rats, he might have kept a cat to control the rats, etc. Alas, it is not based on this Jack. It was first published in 1755, so the story wasn’t based on his home. The title to his home was based on the Tale.

The number 1613 is written in the bottom right hand corner below the sign.

I presume that this means that this was the 1,613th post card published by J. V. Hartman and Company. Hartman was a photographer that published his images of New England views as monochrome and color postcards. His company existed from about 1910 to 1920. That is why this post card is from the Divided Back Era (1907 – 1915). Judging by the post card number on front and the given years, we can date this post card to between 1910 and 1915.