The Story of "The General"

The name of the locomotive on the front of this post card is "The General". It was made famous by the 1926 Buster Keaton film, The General. In early

spring 1862 Northern forces advanced on Huntsville, Alabama, heading for Chattanooga, Tennessee. Union general Ormsby Mitchel accepted the offer of a civilian spy, James J. Andrews, a contraband merchant and trader between the lines, to lead a raiding party behind Confederate lines to Atlanta, steal a locomotive, and race northward, destroying track, telegraph lines, and maybe bridges toward Chattanooga. The raid thus aimed to knock out the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which supplied Confederate forces at Chattanooga, just as Mitchel’s army advanced. On April 7 Andrews chose twenty-two volunteers from three Ohio infantry regiments, plus one civilian. In plain clothes they slipped through the lines to Chattanooga and entrained to Marietta; two men were caught on the way. Two more overslept on the morning of April 12, when Andrews’s party boarded the northbound train. They traveled eight miles to Big Shanty (present-day Kennesaw), chosen for the train jacking because it had no telegraph. While crew and passengers ate breakfast, the raiders uncoupled most of the cars. At about 6 a.m. they steamed out of Big Shanty aboard the locomotive General, a tender, and three empty boxcars. Though it created a sensation at the time, the Andrews Raid had no military effect. General Mitchel’s forces captured Huntsville on April 11 but did not move on to Chattanooga. The cut telegraph lines and pried rails were quickly repaired. Nevertheless, the train thieves were hailed in the North as heroes. This information was taken from this website: Davis, Stephen. "Andrews Raid." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Oct 5, 2018. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/andrews-raid/ The post card was published by W. M. Kline Company out of Chattanooga, Tennessee, a publisher of Southern view-cards as Linens and Photochomes. Most cards depicted scenes of Tennessee and North Carolina with quite a few on Cherokee Indians. They also issued a large series of real photo postcards with white borders. They existed from 1942 to 1960.

Cincinnati Southern Railway - Yes, There is Such a Thing!

The train crossing the bridge on the front of this post card belongs to the Cincinnati Southern Railway. It is crossing the highest bridge in Kentucky. The Cincinnati Southern is a very unique railroad in as much as it is owned by a city. This website gives a concise history of the Railway: http://cincinnatisouthernrailway.org/ The City of Cincinnati is the only municipality in the country to own an interstate railroad. An Ohio law enabling the creation of the Cincinnati Southern Railway was enacted on May 4, 1869. Cincinnati voters adopted a resolution designating Chattanooga as the southern terminus one month later. Workmen spiked the last rail in place on December 10, 1879. The first freight train completed the route from Cincinnati to Chattanooga on February 21, 1880. The first passenger train followed on March 8. Thus began an innovative, visionary and complex commercial enterprise intended, from its first considerations in 1835, to expand the economy of Cincinnati. The enterprise continues today, under a long-term lease with Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (CNO&TP), generating revenue annually for capital infrastructure improvements and repair throughout the City of Cincinnati. The bridge over which the train is crossing is described well in this website: https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/kentucky/high-bridge-ky/ High Bridge opened as a part of the Cincinnati Southern Railway in 1877 and soared at a height of 275 feet and 1,125 feet long. It is the first cantilever bridge constructed in the United States. High Bridge was officially dedicated in 1879. Many people gathered for the dedication in hopes of seeing then President Rutherford B. Hayes, who was in attendance. Notably, also in attendance was General William Tecumseh Sherman. Over a century later and the bridge continues to stand as one of the tallest and most impressive in Kentucky. At the time it was built, High Bridge was the tallest bridge above a navigable waterway in North America and the tallest railroad bridge in the world until the early 1900s. In 1911, a new bridge was built around the existing one and then in 1929 an additional set of tracks was built to accommodate increased railroad traffic and the original limestone towers were removed.

The post card is an excellent example of a linen post card. In my opinion the Metrocraft Company is second only to Curt Otto Teich in the technique of making linen post cards. They existed in Everett, Massachusetts from 1939 to 1984. The company was a major printer of linen and photochrome postcards displaying a variety of subjects. They also printed postcards for many other publishers. A good number of Metrocraft’s early photochrome postcards retained the use of retouchers that had worked on their linens. These cards have a very distinct look before they went over to a completely uniform photographic means of natural color reproduction. I am very sad about what someone did to the back of the post card in order to put it into an album. Someday I will try to remove the black album paper from the post card!!

Quite the Engineering Feat

The Huey P. Long Bridge is a favorite railfan location. It is owned by the

New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, which is owned by the City of New Orleans and managed by the Public Belt Railroad Commission. The information below was taken from the website of the American Society of Civil Engineers: https://www.asce.org/project/huey-p--long-bridge/ "It remains today one of the great bridge engineering accomplishments for railway and highway bridges built in the country." - Historic American Engineering Record, Southeast Regional Office, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2005 By the late 1880s, New Orleans was being served individually by multiple railroad trunk lines. A committee of citizens decided that this wasn't the most efficient and economical way to provide rail service to the port area along the river. They decided that a belt railroad was needed to provide switching among the different trunks. Prior to the construction of the Huey P. Long Bridge, railcars and trucks had to be ferried across the river. With the construction of this bridge, the Port of New Orleans became better connected to the rail infrastructure on both banks. Many conditions, such as the "gumbo soil" in and around the river, low land approaches, strong river currents, and the need for high navigation clearances required for ocean-going vessels, made the design and construction of this bridge difficult. Dr. Karl Terzaghi, who had developed a science of soil mechanics based on investigations of the permeability and compressibility of soil samples, concluded that the caissons of the four main piers should be sealed in a sand layer at a depth of approximately 170 feet and that the fatigue loading should not be more than 5.5 tons per square foot. Prior to Dr. Terzaghi's involvement, it had been recommended that the main piers should be founded from 225 feet to 250 feet below Gulf level. Even when the widening of the bridge was started in 2006, it was determined that no changes to the caisson foundations were needed. Designed by the firm of Modjeski, Masters and Chase, the Huey P Long Bridge was the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River at New Orleans. Its dual-track railroad portion was the longest, highest railroad bridge in the world at the time with a total length of 22,995 feet. The highway portion, 8,076 feet long, consisted originally of two lanes cantilevered off each side. This bridge opened up the southern portion of the country to improved transportation of commerce and people.

The post card was published by Tichnor Brothers Inc. I have 10 post cards from them. It was a long lived company and a major publisher and printer of a wide variety of postcards types from 1912 to 1987 and based at 160 North Washington Street, Boston and Cambridge, MA. Their view-cards were produced on a national level. Their view-cards were produced on a national level. They also produced a black white open halftone series on the hurricane of 1938. Their photochomes went under the trade name Lusterchrome. They also produced an early Tichnor Gloss series that was so heavily retouched they floated somewhere between being artist drawn and being a photograph. The company was sold in 1987 to Paper Majic.

Two Crozier Canyon in Arizona Post Cards

This is a picture of a Santa Fe Railroad train as it passes through Crozier Canyon in northwest Arizona (about 55 kilometers [35 miles] northeast of Kingman, Arizona). This post card was printed by the Detroit Publishing Company. More about this below.... However, about the picture: In 1857, President James Buchanan authorized Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (soon to be the president of the Confederate States), to find a road that would connect Fort Defiance in today's New Mexico with Fort Mohave in the extreme west of what is today Arizona. Davis delegated this task to Lieutenant Edward Beale. This expedition was to have a second purpose, to see if camels - natural desert animals in other parts of the world - would be useful for the US military applications. Davis authorized the purchase of about 30 camels at $1,000 per head. The entire party surveyed northern Arizona along the 37th parallel. Today, Interstate 40 and old Route 66 follow part of what became known as "Beale's Wagon Road". The camels proved their worth, but the military developed other priorities and sold off the camels. The legend of "Hi Jolly" is worth pursuing if you are interested in "American Camels".

As you can clearly see, this post card comes to us from the White Border Era of post card printing. Prior to this era the printed pictures went right to the outside borders of the post card. When one prints hundreds of thousands of post cards, cutting the picture off with an eight of an inch border of white can save over 10 percent of the ink. That means that one can get one extra post card per print run for every nine that one prints. That kind of savings adds up!!

This post card below is a duplicate of the one above. The difference is that this one comes to us from the Linen Card Era. This post card was printed by one of the pioneers who developed the textured card, Curt Otto Teich. He made the card for the Fred Harvey Company. Fred Harvey was the originator of the "Harvey House" chain of restaurants and hotels that he built along the railroads in the western United States. He started the company in the late 1800s and he died in 1901. So, this post card was published by the company that he left behind.

In 1897 Harvey took over the news stands for the A.T.&S.F. Railroad and began distributing postcards. Between 1901 and 1932 the Company contracted all their cards with the Detroit Publishing Company (thus, the first post card that we see above). These cards have an H prefix before their identification number, but in addition Detroit published many of Harvey’s images on their own. After Detroit closed, many of Harvey’s cards were contracted out to Curt Teich (thus, the second post card that we see here) among others.

These are the backs of the post cards. The first one is from the White Border Era, printed by the Detroit Publishing Company. You can see in the upper left-hand corner the word "PHOSTINT"; this is the trademark that they used for their own, unique printing process. The same area also shows us that Fred Harvey's company was involved in the publishing of this post card. The description is much longer on this post card than the one below.

The bottom one is the one that was printed by the Curt Otto Teich company. At the very bottom of the middle of this side of the card is the code: 7A-H2919 This tells me that the post card was printed by the Curt Otto Teich company in 1937 - indicated by the "7A" - for Fred Harvey's company. Notice that both companies indicate with an "H" that this job is for Fred Harvey - they just have different numbers for the post card lots.

The Only One in My Collection

Don't let the title fool you. We are still staying with the theme of exaggerated pictures on post cards with this post. We are straying away from exaggerated edibles to exaggerated lumber

(or rather titles for the lumber). The title on the front of the card is there to get your attention (as if the picture, itself, isn't enough). This particular post card is calling these very large timbers "toothpicks". The back of the post card, however, gives away the truth of the situation.

This shipment of wood is from Washington or Oregon and the people in that area of the United States are proud of their handiwork and production.
Now, to explain the title of this post. I keep track of all the printers and publishers of the post cards in my collection. I have 3,036 post cards from 529 identifiable printers and publishers. This is the only post card with Wesley Andrews in "the credits".

This line has been turned 90 degrees so you can read it. It is actually used as the line between the address and the message sections of the post card - very creative use of words. The texture of the paper used for the post card, the code on the front in the bottom right-hand corner and these words "C. T. ART COLORTONE" tell me that this is a Curt Otto Teich card from early 1932. I have lots of post cards from him. But, this is the only post card that I have with a credit going to Wesley Andrews. I looked him up on the internet and this is what I have found. He was born in Ontario, Canada (YAY! A fellow Canadian!!) and set up his first publishing shop in 1904 in Baker, Oregon. He was also a photographer famous for his views of the Oregon coast. He moved his shop to Portland around 1920 and eventually sold it to Herb Goldsmith before his death in 1950. Andrews donated hundreds of his negatives to the Oregon Historical Society, leaving a legacy of his pioneering photography.
This what the back of the post card looks like:

What a High Bridge!

In the aftermath of the Civil War, a major north-south railroad route was deemed vitally important. The Cincinnati Southern Railroad picked up where the defunct Lexington and Danville railroad had left off. A new cantilever bridge was designed by Charles Shaler Smith to be built at the same location as the previously planned suspension bridge.

Shaler, as he was known, was an engineering officer in the Confederate army during the Civil War. He designed the Confederate Powder Works in Augusta, Georgia. Following the war, he became well known as the foremost American engineer of the day. His Baltimore Bridge Company, a partnership with Benjamin and Charles Latrobe, boasted of creating 13 miles of bridges in its advertising, including four bridges over the Mississippi, one over the Missouri, and one over the Saint Lawrence. Shaler was known for innovative solutions to engineering challenges.

His use of a cantilever design for the bridge helped solve the difficult construction challenge of the 275 feet deep gorge of the Kentucky River. The cantilever meant that minimal scaffolding was necessary; the arms of the bridge could be built out from the piers, balancing each other without the need for falsework.
When the bridge was completed in 1877, it was not only the first cantilever bridge in North America, but also the highest and longest cantilever in the world. The completed bridge stood 275 feet tall and spanned 1,125 feet. Until the early 20th century, the bridge held the record as the highest bridge over a navigable stream.
High Bridge, as it became known, ushered in the era of modern bridge building. The engineering marvel was dedicated by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879. The American Society of Civil Engineers designated High Bridge as an engineering landmark in 1986. A model of the bridge can be found in the American History Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.
With increasing and heavier railroad traffic, it became evident that the bridge would need to be reinforced or rebuilt. During 1910 and 1911, the bridge was rebuilt using a design by Gustav Lindenthal.
The rebuilt bridge used the same footings as the original bridge and was built around the original. By raising the track deck of the new bridge almost 30 feet above the existing deck, railroad traffic was able to continue uninterrupted during the rebuilding.
The higher deck of the new bridge required a new elevated approach. A temporary trestle was built and then filled to the required height.
As traffic increased, the railroad found it necessary to double the track on the bridge. By the end of the track doubling project in 1929, High Bridge had attained its current appearance.
The massive limestone towers that had been a trademark of the bridge and village had to be removed to provide clearance for the extra track. Legend has it that when the towers were built in 1851, a bottle of premium bourbon was sealed in each tower by the masons to commemorate the occasion. When the towers were torn down, no one admitted to finding the bottles.

The above information is from: http://www.worldtimzone.com/railtrail/highbridge/construction.php

The post card was published by the Metrocraft Company of Everett, Mass. They were a major printer of linen and photochrome postcards, as is evidenced by this particular post card,

displaying a variety of subjects. They also printed postcards for many other publishers. A good number of Metrocraft’s early photochrome postcards retained the use of retouchers that had worked on their linens. These cards have a very distinct look before they went over to a completely uniform photographic means of natural color reproduction. From: the Metropolitan Post Card Club of New York website.

Moffat Tunnel

I am blogging about this post card because it just recently came to me in the mail. I have a few others about which I will blog so that I can process them into my collection - now up to 3,034 train post cards.

I published on previous blog about the Moffat Tunnel. It was on May 10, 2014. That post was mostly about David Moffat, after whom the Moffat Tunnel was named. This is a quick summary of what was in that post: "Almost all of the information that follows came from the Wikipedia website.
David Moffat was born in Washingtonville, New York on July 22, 1839. He moved to Denver, Colorado in 1860. Unfortunately, as the Union Pacific Railroad built the transcontinental railroad heading west it by-passed Denver for a much flatter and easier to construct route. Building the transcontinental railroad through Nebraska, totally by-passing Colorado, left the Denver stranded from the commerce connections that it had hoped for.

As a result of this snub, the governor of Colorado, together with other local business leaders, including David Moffat partnered with East Coast investors to form a railroad company (the Denver Pacific Railway) that would link Denver and the Colorado Territory with the transcontinental railroad. The second railroad company, the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad, with which Moffat was involved got its start intending to connect the mining area of Colorado to the city of Denver. It began in 1872 and operated as an independent railroad until it was sold in foreclosure proceedings in 1889.

Looking south, Mr. Moffat, along with other business men, began the Denver and New Orleans Railroad. Their intention was to bring business to and from the Gulf of Mexico. As if that wasn’t enough railroading, David Moffat then started the first trolley line in Denver.

His next venture was to be the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway climbing to the top of Pikes Peak. The company was founded in 1889 and limited service to the Halfway House Hotel was started in 1890. The summit was reached the following year.

In 1885 David Moffat was elected to Denver & Rio Grande board. Then in 1887 Moffat was elected president of the Denver & Rio Grande. Moffat built the Glenwood to Grand Junction, standard gauging Pueblo to Grand Junction, and the Tennessee pass tunnel.

1892 David Moffat next developed a railroad to Creede from Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado. It ran along the banks of the Rio Grande to Creede at his own expense. He formed the Rio Grande Gunnison Railway Company.

Finally, David H. Moffat and his business associates established the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway. It was reorganized as the Denver & Salt Lake Railway and it was along this railway that the Moffat Tunnel was bored. David Moffat envisioned a tunnel through the continental divide west of Denver. Construction of the Moffat Tunnel took place from 1923 to 1927. It was officially opened on February 28, 1928 with much fanfare and several trainloads of special guests in attendance at the East Portal, the picture on this post card. Denver & Salt Lake Railroad locomotive 205, a 2-6-6-0 compound locomotive, pulled the first official passenger train through the new tunnel. The Moffat Tunnel is 6.2 miles long and is the 6th largest tunnel on earth.

Mr. Moffat died on March 18, 1911, before he could realize this dream."

This post is more about the Tunnel itself and, of course, the post card attached to it. This post card was published after 1927. I know that because one of the dates on the top of the tunnel states that it was completed in 1927. But, judging by the wording on the back of the post card, it was not published much after that date. It says,"The estimated cost was to be approximately $13,000,000 but due to unexpected and unforeseen conditions arising from time to time it is now estimated that the total cost will be about $18,000,000." This card was published so closely to the completion of the tunnel that they didn't even know the full cost of the construction.

The post card was published by the H. H. Tammen Curio Company. That little critter at which the arrow up the middle of the post card is pointing, is their trademark. A novelty dealer and important publisher of national view-cards and Western themes in continuous tone and halftone lithography. Their logo does not appear on all their cards but other graphic elements are often remain the same. H. H. Tammen (1856-1924) Harry Heye Tammen was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 6, 1856, the son of a German immigrant pharmacist. He attended Knapps Academy in Baltimore, then worked in Philadelphia before moving to Denver in 1880. (from the Metropolitan Post Card Club of New York)

The post card itself is from the Linen Era (1930 - 1945).

You can see how this company tried their best to make it look like linen. In my books, nobody came close to the best linen post card maker Curt Teich.

Goin' to Florida

The Overseas Railroad was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway

to Key West, located 128 miles beyond the end of the Florida peninsula. Work on the line started in 1905 and was completed in 1912; the line was in daily passenger and freight service until its destruction by a hurricane in 1935. My wife and I joke a lot about cars driving down the road for kilometers with their turn signals on. We usually alert the other person by saying,"Guess he's goin' to Florida." Then the other person knows to look for a car with continuous turn signalling happening. I have to admit that she has asked me if I was going to Florida a couple of times. Today's blog post is taking us to Florida without the benefit of an ongoing turn signal. We are looking at three of my seven post cards that highlight the Florida East Railway's Long Key Viaduct. I will first tell you the story, then talk about the publisher of each post card at the end. I will simply intersperse the fronts of the post cards through the narrative as taken mostly from Wikipedia. The

construction problems were formidable; labor turnover was frequent and the cost was prohibitive. The first portion of the line, from Homestead to Key Largo, was across swamp land. Thankfully, the dredging of the drainage canals to clear the swamps provided the material to build up the roadbed. Worse than any other challenge was the weather: a hurricane in September 1906 destroyed the initial work on the Long Key Viaduct and killed more than 100 laborers. Hurricanes in 1909 and 1910 destroyed much of the completed railroad. After these hurricanes, work resumed at a faster pace — The owner of the railroad was 80 years old and wanted to ride all the way to Key West on his railroad. The completion of Seven Mile Bridge assured many that the line would soon be completed. Henry Flagler, by then blind, arrived in Key West on January 22, 1912, aboard his private rail car "Rambler", telling a welcoming crowd, “Now I can die happy. My dream is fulfilled.” Regular service on the 156-mile extension — dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World" — began the following day, with through sleepers between New York and Key West with connections at Key West for passenger steamers and car ferries bound for Havana. Flagler died less than 18 months later in May 1913.

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane washed away approximately 40 miles of the Middle Keys section of the line. In addition, the Long Key Fishing Camp was destroyed, along with a rescue train which was — with the exception of locomotive #447 — overturned by the storm surge at Islamorada, Florida. With Flagler gone, the railroad was unwilling to repair a line that had never repaid its construction cost — an unknown figure. It was later determined that the total cost of what had been derisively nicknamed "Flagler's Folly" exceeded $50 million ($1.31 billion today), all from his personal fortune.

The top post card, above was mailed in 1914, soon after the viaduct opened. It was published by the H. S. Kress Company. A publisher and large distributor of postcards through their national chain of Five & Dime stores. They were purchased by Genesco in 1964 who slowly began shutting the business down.

The middle post card was published by the Leighton & Valentine Company

out of New York City. Hugh C. Leighton was a printer and major publisher of national view-cards, especially scenes of New England. They printed most of their cards in four distinct styles employing halftone lithography. Most used a simple soft yet highly recognizable RGB pallet. While some cards were printed at their plant in the U.S. most were manufactured in Frankfort, Germany. Almost all their cards were numbered. They merged with Valentine & Sons in 1909.

The last of the post cards was published by the E.C. Kropp Company:

a publisher and printer that began producing chromolithographic souvenir cards and private mailing cards in 1898 under the name Kropp. These cards were of much higher quality than those that would printed under the E.C. Kropp name. They became the E.C. Kropp Company in 1907 and produced large numbers of national view-cards and other subjects. Their latter linen cards had a noticeably fine grain. Sold to L.L. Cook in 1956 and they are now part of the GAF Corp. U.S. This post card is an excellent example of a linen post card. The texture and weight of the card are obvious when one holds it and holds it up to the light. I hope you can see the texture in this close-up:

Maybe the Last One, for a while...

This is a linen era post card printed by the, in my opinion, guru of linen post cards: Curt Otto Teich and Company. The picture is of a steam engine with a passenger train behind it crossing over the Kinzua Bridge in Pennsylvania. The Kinzua Viaduct, when first constructed in May 1882, was the highest and longest viaduct in the world, measuring 301 feet high and 2,053 feet long. The need to transport coal, oil and lumber across the Kinzua Gorge inspired General Thomas Kane, president of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Coal Company and Octave Chanute, Chief Engineer for the Erie Railroad to design a colossal viaduct. It was built by the Elmira Bridge Co. of Elmira, New York. The longest span is only 60 feet, but the entire bridge is 2,053 feet long.

In 1900, the viaduct was rebuilt of steel to accommodate larger loads and the weight of "modern" train traffic. I found a picture taken while they were re-constructing the bridge out of steel. That is the bridge we see in this post card.

The style of bridge is a Deck Plate Girder Bridge, which passes the train over Kinzua Creek [today on the former Erie Railway at Kinzua Bridge State Park] in McKean County, Pennsylvania. You can driver there today and walk on the re-constructed bridge that was mostly destroyed by a tornado on July 21, 2003. But the remaining spans were rehabilitated and reopened in 2011 as the "Kinzua Sky Walk"

If you choose to drive there these GPS coordinates can help you to arrive:
Approximate latitude, longitude
+41.76345, -78.58928 (decimal degrees)
41°45'48" N, 78°35'21" W (degrees)

The post card was printed by Curt Otto Teich as a Linen Post Card and it was published by J. P. Walmer of Box 224 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Mr. Walmer took many pictures in Pennsylvania and turned them into post cards. Penn State has about 16 of his in their collection. Judging by what I could find I know he was active in the 1930s. That makes sense because the Linen Card era starts around 1930.

Development of the Linen Post Card

Continuing on the theme of Pikes Peak, I have scanned three post cards from the Linen Post Card era.

Two of these cards are from 1939 and 1941. Because the third one is postally unused, I cannot tell you the exact age of the card. Two of them are from the H.H. Tammen Company which existed from 1896 to 1953; the other is from the E. C. Kropp Company, which existed from 1907 to 1956.

I chose the top two, not because they share the same picture, but because they share the same picture on two different types of card stock.

The post card on the left is from the White Border Era (1915-1930). The card stock is smooth and shiny, although certainly not as shiny as a Chrome Post Card. The white border was developed on post cards for the printers and publishers to save money on the cost of ink. While printing on post card may not seem like a large savings, if one multiplies that amount of unprinted space by the millions of post cards printed during this era, it adds up to a huge savings.

The post card on the right looks like it is from the Linen Post Card Era (1930-1945). While saving money in the same manner as the previous era, the publishers added a quality to the post card. In a system of paper making adding rag content into the paper used for card stock, the paper took on a textured feeling. Rumor has it that Curt Otto Teich might have invented this style of card. If he didn’t invent it, he certainly perfected it!

This card is not from the Curt Teich Company. It is from the H.H. Tammen Company. I am not convinced that it is an actual Linen Post Card. As I hold it up to the light and feel the texture, I am thinking that the printer simply ran the card through a machine that texturized the card. I have tried to scan a close-up of the linen-style card so that you can see the texture difference. You can see a regular pattern of squares that have what look like indentations into the post card. These indents show best on the white border.

I think the H. H. Tammen Company either made linen cards of much lesser quality than the Curt Teich Company or did their best to imitate the look and feel of a linen card without going through the real process. So, when I hold the two H.H. Tammen cards from above next to each other, the quality difference is sort of obvious. But, when I hold this H.H. Tammen card next to a Curt Teich Linen Era Post Card the difference jumps out at me.

The H.H. Tammen Company was based in Denver, Colorado. It was founded by Harry Heye Tammen, who was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1881 he and his business partner started H.H. Tammen and Company. That name changed in 1896 when they added two more partners: Carl Litzenberger and Joseph Cox. The new company was called the H.H. Tammen Curio Company.

The bottom post card is included in this set simply because it, too, shows the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway in the Spring with snow on either side of the tracks. It seems to have been taken from very close to where the other picture was taken. This post card was printed by the E. C. Kropp Company. The company was founded in 1907 and based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin until they were sold to L.L. Cook in 1956. E.C. Kropp began publishing and printing in 1898 but, became the E.C. Kropp Company in 1907. I understand that they produced some high quality linen cards, but I don’t have any in my train post card collection.

This post card was printed for the publisher “Garden of the Gods”, which is a tourist destination down the hill from Pikes Peak in Colorado. The story of the “Famous Balanced Rock” is interesting but not related to my train post cards other than the passing reference on this post card. You can read its story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_the_Gods. These are the backs of the three cards.
There are only two pictures because the H.H. Tammen Company didn't change the back from one style of post card to the other. So, I chose this one because there is an official stamp at the top telling us that someone was up on the top of Pikes Peak on August 17, 1941. The other H.H. Tammen post card is postmarked from July 19, 1939 - just a few short months before World War II began with the invasion of Poland.

Linen Post Cards

Continuing on the theme of Pikes Peak, I have scanned three post cards from the Linen Post Card era. The ages of these cards range from the 1930s to the mid-1940s. Because they are postally unused, I cannot tell you the exact age of any of the cards. Two of them are from the H.H. Tammen Company which existed from 1896 to 1953; one is from the Sanborn Souvenir Company, which existed from 1920 to 1976. This is quite the range of dates but, we can narrow it down a bit.These three post cards are what they call Linen Post Cards. In about 1930 publishers began to print post cards on a linen paper stock. These post cards were called linen because the rag content within the paper gave these post cards a textured “feel.” You can also see the weave in the cards if you hold them just right in the lighting. They were popular among the printers and publishers because they were cheaper to produce and they accepted the use of bright dyes for coloring the pictures on the faces of the cards. Curt Otto Teich was among the early linen post card publishers; some say his company invented the process. The advent of chrome post cards (1939) brought this era to an end. You can see some example of chrome post cards in my previous blog post.

Although you couldn’t tell it by the smoke coming out of the engine, the top post card is a view of Windy Point on the way up to Pikes Peak. It is a product of the H.H. Tammen Company. There is no indicator on the card about who might have printed the card.

The middle card is showing a train as it passed the timberline on Pikes Peak. This was published by the Sanborn Souvenir Company from Denver, Colorado. There is no indicator of the printer on the back of the card, but the number on the front hints that it may have been the Curt Teich Company. The visual “feel” of the card places it back in the early 1900s; but, the linen in the card says otherwise. If I am correct in interpreting the number in the bottom right hand corner of the card (14400-N), this was a reprint of a post card that the Curt Teich Company first printed in 1908. The N in Curt Teich parlance indicates that this card is a reprint.

The bottom card is also from the H.H. Tammen Company and again there is no indicator of who the printer was. One way of dating this card might be to know more about cars than trains.

There are a couple of automobiles at the top of Pikes Peak. If I knew as much about cars as I do about trains, I could probably tell you the year and make of the cars. We could then date the post card to a time after that.

On to California

We have been in Utah (on top of the Great Salt Lake, to be specific) for the last few posts. Today, we are moving over to California. I have more post cards of Utah, but I will save those for later. I want to visit California, where I lived for 21 years in 4 different locations in both northern and southern parts of the state.

This card seems to be part of an advertising campaign by the Southern California Tourist Agency. It probably isn’t, but it certainly highlights the attitude that people had about Southern California. The description of the scene on the top of the card says, “The Golden State Limited, Passing through Orange Groves, Southern Calif.”. I love that fact that they are combining Southern California with orange groves. I have actually seen train tracks through the orange groves. We moved to Southern California in 1959 and for a family outing would drive randomly through the state near our home. Sometimes we would wind up in an orange grove area and, sure enough, there would be train tracks in the middle of them. I love that this picture also has orange blossoms on the trees! This card is from the Linen Card Era (1930 – 1945). One can certainly tell, though, by feeling it that it was not produced by Curt Otto Teich. It is much smoother to the touch on the front.

The back of the post card makes it clear that this was not by Curt Teich. It is published by the M. Kashower Company of Los Angeles. It even says so twice! The first and clearest statement is on the left of the card, “Pub. By M. Kashower co., Los Angeles, Calif.” The second indicator is their logo. It is at the top, middle of the card between the words POST and CARD. It is hard to tell, but I think it is a bear (the California state symbol) between the two letters M and K. This is in a circle with a sprig of leaves covering from the bottom to about 1 and 11 o’clock on the circle. Most of their cards were scenes from Southern California. The M. Kashower Co. was headquartered in Los Angeles from 1914 to 1934. That means that they ended their business shortly after this post card was printed.