Scouting Around

Here are two more post cards from between Echo Mountain and the Alpine Tavern.

The post card at the top has red ink printed across the top of its face. It says, “1500- SCENE ALONG PACIFIC ELECTRIC RAILWAY, MT. LOWE, CALIFORNIA IN WINTER”. It is beautiful proof that Southern California can get snow – at least, up in the mountains surrounding the basin. It is the older of the two cards. As you can see, it is from the divided back era. The picture goes right to the edge of the post card. The bottom card is from the “white border” era. Across the bottom white border one can read the caption: “CLIMBING TO CLOUDLAND, MT. LOWE, CALIFORNIA”. It looks to be springtime on the mountain. The red flowers are in full bloom along the tracks. The top card is the product of Edward H. Mitchell. Mitchell was born in 1867 in San Francisco, California. This is the city in which he based his printing/publishing company. In fact, he was printing cards in a building that was destroyed by the great earthquake. He was a very prolific producer. He travelled all over the United States gathering subject matter for his post cards. Mitchell also owned or was a partner in the Pacific Novelty Co. and the Souvenir Publishing Co. I have some great cards he printed of produce being shipped to market on flat cars and in gondolas. I will save them for a future series of postings. There is no date on the card but we know that it was printed between about 1907 and 1915.

The bottom card is another E.C. Kropp Company product. We can date this card a bit easier, because there is a postmark on the back. It was mailed from:” Mount Lowe California Aug 23 P.M. 1930” The Mt. Lowe trademark that we saw in the last posting is also on this post card. The message is from Janet to Florence. Janet says, “Like all the high toned people, I’m spending my time here. One more day of this and then I’m winding my way to the office.” Florence lives in Los Angeles and works at the Hall of Records. I think Janet probably worked there, too. I wonder which got back to the office first, the post card or Janet.

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.

Back at the Beginning

Sometimes I can be a little slow. I do have my post cards arranged in albums by certain themes. And, within each album, there is a sub-theme. For example, the Mt. Lowe cards are in Album Number Two. It has the themes of California, Utah and New Hampshire. Within California I have sub-themes like Mt. Tamalpais, Knott’s Berry Farm, Angels Flight and California in general. But, within each sub-theme, like Mt. Lowe, they are only organized by similar looking cards. There is no real order to the cards. Today, we get to experience the result of this lack of order. I started the Mt. Lowe exhibition by being at the bottom of the incline that took people to the top of Echo Mountain. On those cards, one can see that there is a trolley at the bottom left. People had to take that trolley up the hill in order to get to the bottom of the incline. These two cards today are pictures of those trolleys. I should have started this exhibit with these two cards. Oh, well. At least you get to see them.

They are both from the “white border” era, which is approximately from 1915 to 1930. The card on the right seems to be the older of the two, in my estimation. The picture is an actual photograph. It was then printed and colorized. The card on the left is a “reproduction” of the original. It looks like they projected the photograph onto a plate and drew the key features onto it. It is like they changed just enough detail so as not to infringe on the copyright of the first. They are published by two different companies.

The one on the bottom, the photograph on the right (above), is by the C. T. American Art company. The C.T. stands for Curt Teich. Curt immigrated to the United States from Lobenstein, Germany, in 1896 at the ripe old age of 19. He started his printing company two years later and it operated until 1978. He was on the leading edge of printing techniques several times. There is a number at the top of the card: R-53765. When one compares this to the “Guide to Dating Curt Teich Postcards” one can conclude that it was printed around 1914. This also makes sense because this card is from the white border era which began around 1915. The top card was printed by the E. C. Kropp Company out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This company published and printed chromolithographic souvenir cards and private mailing cards in 1898 under the name Kropp. These cards were of much higher quality than those that were 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 post cards from the “Linen Era” had a noticeably fine grain. IN 1956, the company was sold to the L.L. Cook Company the last I heard they are now part of the GAF Corp.

Ten Years of Going UP HILL!

We are going to pick up where we left off – Echo Mountain, California. In the last postings you were seeing the incline up Echo Mountain from the bottom. You have seen the cars at the bottom of the incline with the people smiling for the photographer. Now we have climbed up the incline a bit to take of picture of the people in the car as they head up to half way up Mt. Lowe where the Alpine Tavern awaits them. Here are four post card views of the cars on the way up with their excited and happy passengers.

This card first was mailed on October 1, 1909. It shows a bright red car. This matches the color of most of the cars in the post cards taken at the base of the incline. The post card was published by the Newman Post Card Company which existed from 1907 to the 1960s. So this card was published in the first two years of the company’s existence. It began in Los Angeles, CA as 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. In the 1960s they didn’t just disappear, they were purchased by H.S. Crocker.

The top post card is the oldest of these three. It is from the “divided back era”; this is from approximately 1907 to 1915. This card falls right on the edge of the era. Part of the message on the back reads, “…It is sure a great trip and very warm…” It was mailed on July 26, 1915. The middle card is really a reproduction of the first card. But, now we are in the “white border era” – from 1915 to 1930, more or less. It saved the printer a bit of ink by putting a white border around the picture. It was mailed on June 3, 1920. The bottom post card is also from the “white border era”. But, as we look at the picture, we can see how the brush on the side of the mountain has grown. It also seems that the safety committee has visited and suggested that the sides of the car be enclosed!! It was published by the E. C. Kropp Company. In 1898 the E. C. Kropp Company started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by publishing high quality cards. It became the E. C. Kropp Company in 1907 and produced cards from scenes right across the United States. They did some pioneer and experimental techniques. In 1956 the company was sold to the GAF Corporation. In order to make his dream come true, Mr. Lowe had to invent the equipment to take people up this hill – 3000 feet long journey. It was a set of tracks with two cars on them. The cars met at exactly the middle point and followed the tracks as they bent out enough for the cars to pass without bumping each other. The safety equipment, especially the braking, was unusual for the time. But, he had no accidents that I am aware of.

Summer is over; I am back

I just had a great summer. You can see in the previous post from June 9th where I spent some of the summer. I also spent one month in Spain and Portugal. It was absolute heaven. My wife and I were in northern Spain for one week, then we met up with another couple and spent 3 weeks traveling down Portugal and into Andalucia. Did I mention that it was absolute heaven? Here is a picture from northern Portugal a city called Viana do Castello.

This is a passing freight train. There was also a passenger train sitting at the station waiting to begin its run to Porto. We didn't take any trains on this trip. But we walked right next to some. There is a bridge over the Duro River in Porto. It was built by the same man who built the Eiffel tower. Trains travel over the bridge as they enter and leave Porto. BUT... people can walk on the same bridge. Here is proof...

Because we didn't ride a train, my favourite part of the vacation was finding a delicacy of deep-fried pork belly with the skin on. It was heaven!! I write all of this just to let you know that I am back and ready to set a few more postcards into the netherworld of the internet. I hope you enjoy seeing them and reading about them.

Summer in Canada is here!!!

Summer in Edmonton, Alberta means that the posts on this blog will slow down. We will be going out to the lake to visit with friends, to enjoy water skiing, to relish time with friends, to barbecue, to appreciate the friends in our lives, to float on the water, and did I mention to interact with friends.

This will all take precedence over the train post cards. However, once the summer has passed, the cold and dark will drive me back inside, in front of the scanner and computer to post more about my postcard collection.

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.