The Mastodon

I have three more post cards of a water craft carrying a train. It is the “Mastodon”

barge that was used by the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) to ferry trains across the Mississippi River just up river from New Orleans.
So far, my research has told me that the barge was around between 1910 and 1930, but it could have been built long before that because the SP went all the way to New Orleans. In 1892, they proposed the building of a bridge across the Mississippi to facilitate their trains crossing the river. Unfortunately, a depression hit the United States and put a stop to that idea.
So, from about 1910 to the mid-1930s the SP ran the trains across the Mississippi on the Mastodon, the Southern Pacific Railroad's ferryboat, powered by tugboats. The barge took the Sunset Limited passenger train across the Mississippi River from the SPRR dock at Elmira Street (in what is today referred to as Avondale) to the Elysian Fields terminal on the New Orleans side.

It was a journey of about ½ mile.
The barge operated close to 10 miles up-river of New Orleans. The area where it operated is close to 2.5 to 3 miles west of the current Huey P. Long bridge. The Huey P. Long bridge was built in the mid-1930s and it incorporated both rail and vehicular traffic. This would have quickly ended the career of the Mastodon.
Today, this bridge is a huge railfan location and one can find post cards of trains crossing on the Huey P. Long bridge just like there are post cards of the trains crossing on the Mastodon.

Unfortunately, when I turn the post cards over, I can find no information about the publishers or the printers of these cards. On the front of the top post card, there is a number in the bottom right hand corner. It is 617-7. If I knew more about the personalities of each publisher or printer, I could tell you who published this card. I do know that it is from the Divided Back Era, so it is from March 1, 1907 to 1915, more or less. This corroborates the guestimate above, which I picked up from the University of Texas files of pictures of the Mastodon. The middle picture gives us no hints about the printer or publisher on the front, but there is a number at the bottom middle of the card: R-53960. I know that Curt Teich used a similar numbering system for one set of the cards he printed. I believe that it was E. C. Kropp from Milwaukee used a very similar system. The bottom post card has the number 104 in white on the bottom left of the front of the card. It is the only card that also includes the now familiar description of the front of the card on the back upper left corner. However, none of this helps me to identify the printer or publisher of this post card. Alas, I can only sit back and admire their handiwork.

As Big as a County

I have four post cards of the same train ferry. Three of them look awfully similar to each other. The other one is independent of these cards. The post cards are pictures of the train ferry “Solano”. Until its sister ship, the “Contra Costa”, was built it was the largest train ferry in the world. The two of them carried train traffic from Benicia (the third capital city of California from February 4, 1853 to February 25, 1854) and Port Costa in California (a trip that was perhaps less than two miles). It is a body of water known as the Carquinez Strait on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay where the Sacramento River empties into the Bay. Today, the former ferry route is framed by Solano County on the north, Contra Costa County on the south, Interstate 80 on the west and Interstate 680 on the east.

Although you can’t see it in these post cards, the “Solano” was a double side wheel paddleboat. It was constructed, owned and operated by the Central Pacific Railroad to ferry trains on the transcontinental line (it was on this route that the golden spike was driven in Utah on May 10, 1869) to and from the San Francisco Bay Area. In the bottom post card of this set, it says that the ferry is carrying the Overland Limited from Point Costa (it is actually Port Costa) to Benicia (the train is headed east).
Once the transcontinental railroad reached the sea level ferry crossing at Benicia, it was moved onto the “Solano” to be transported across the strait to Port Costa.

The “Solano”, which was built in 1878 in Oakland, California, was named for the county in which Benicia sits. It was 424 feet (129 m) long and 116 feet (35 m) wide and was capable of carrying entire passenger trains or a 48-car freight train and locomotive. It was in service from 1879 to 1930.
By 1927, the “Solano” had reached its maximum capacity. On May 31, 1928 the Southern Pacific, successor to the Central Pacific in operations of the ferry, authorized construction of a railroad bridge from Benicia to Martinez just east of Port Costa. The railroad bridge opened in November 1930 and continues to serve the Union Pacific and Amtrak railroads.

Following the opening of the railroad bridge, most of the “Solano” was dismantled and sold for scrap. However, what does remain of the “Solano” can be seen today where it was scuttled to create a breakwater in the San Joaquin River near Antioch, California east of its old route. This video on youtube will take you on a tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zfo_GlXpjE

The top picture is on a post card published by the Souvenir Publishing Company of San Francisco. I do not know much about the history of the company. The appearance of the back makes me think that Edward H. Mitchell had something to do with printing. I can’t guarantee it, though. We can tell that it was published before 1915. In the upper left-hand corner of the card is a seal advertising the upcoming Pan-Pacific International Exposition to be held in San Francisco in 1915. It is a divided back card, so it was printed between 1907 and 1915. I know absolutely nothing about the printer or publisher of the bottom card! I have several that have that scroll design around the words POST CARD, but I cannot find any information about who used it.

The top post card of this set was published by Richard Behrandt, an importer and wholesaler of toys, novelties, stereo-views, greetings and postcards. Behrendt published a wide variety of postcard types under his own name including view-cards of the West Coast and the San Francisco Earthquake. His office was at 711 Mission Street in San Francisco from 1906 to 1930. This post card was sent to France on January 22, 1919.

This bottom post card has a very distinctive logo in the top middle of the card. Despite that, I can find no information about the publisher of this care, either. It, too, is a divided back card, so it is from between 1907 and 1915.

Do You Have Prince Albert in a Canyon?

No. We don’t. Because the name "Albert" comes not from Prince Albert, as was common in the period, but for Albert Rogers, nephew of Major Rogers, the discoverer of the pass.

The words on the front of this post card say, "The Observation Platform at Albert Canyon".

Albert Canyon was a railway-based village in the Rogers Pass area of British Columbia, Canada,

based around a hot spring known as Canyon Hot Springs and also a "pusher" station for pass-climbing engines of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

This post card is the result of Gowan, Sutton Company of Vancouver, British Columbia. The company began in 1921 and lasted until 1960. They were a publisher of real photo and printed postcards of the Canadian West. Not only did they produce cards depicting large cities, they captured many hard to reach views within the Canadian Territories.

Many of their cards were hand tinted in a simple manner striving for style rather than realism, which created cards in vastly differing quality. While the real photo cards were made in Canada their printed cards were made in England.

This, as you can see was a made in Canada real photo card. The stamp on the top back of the card is a giveaway to this fact, too.

Pike’s Peak at Night

Today we are looking at Pike’s Peak lit up by the moon.

The caption at the bottom of the card reads: “Summit of Pikes Peak, Colorado Altitude 14147 feet.” You can see the moon peaking from behind the clouds in the upper right hand corner. There are four men to the left of the steam engine and passenger car. My imagination allows me to think that the two in the back are looking for a nickel that one of them dropped while the two in the front are examining the tracks, wondering how the heck they were able to get up that steep hill. The building is showing the improvements made to the original weather station that was erected on the summit. This one looks like it has the souvenir shop, guest rooms, diner, and observation tower. The front of the card shows us that it is from between 1907 and 1915.

The back of the card says the same thing.

It is from the Divided Back Era. The postage box in the upper right tells us that it cost only one cent to send this card to the USA, Cuba, Canal Zone, Hawaii, Mexico, Philippines, and Porto Rico. All else costs two cents.

This information is from the Metropolitan Postcard Club website: The eagle sitting on the shield tells us that the publisher of this card was the Illustrated Post Card Company. They were in business from 1905 to 1914. Their office was located at 520 West 84th Street, New York, NY. They produced a wide variety of tinted halftone postcards in series that were printed by Emil Pinkau in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. Each city or location of their color card sets was assigned the same number prefix. They also published an unnumbered series of chromolithographic fine art cards that were printed in Dresden. Many of their early cards do not have their name on them, only their distinct eagle logo.

Up the left side of this post card one can see their other logo plus a prefix number. It is a 6 followed by a dash 9. “6.-9” So, the six must mean either Denver, Colorado Springs or just the state of Colorado. Their best known cards are from a very large set that captured scenes throughout the City of New York. These cards tended to use brighter than average colors and were titled in a very distinct font. Similar cards, but with more subdued writing, appeared afterwards depicting scenes from the surrounding regions such as Long Island.

In 1909 they stopped importing cards from Germany and began printing their own. A large number of black & white cards were produced in a more open halftone with some being poorly hand colored. These black & white cards were numbered consecutively.



From the information above we can now say that the card was printed between 1907 (divided era begins on March 1, 1907) and 1909 (when this company stopped importing from Germany).

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern

This post card is a picture of three trains parked at the Lake Shore Depot in Hillsdale, Michigan. This is part of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad (LS & MS RR).

We can see that there were at least three tracks at the station, but I know from another source that there were at least four tracks. If you look in the very front part of the crowd between the two steam engines you can see a water standpipe. It was used to fill the tenders of the steam engines.

Take a look at the telephone poles. That is a lot of wire on those poles!!

Here is the history of the LS & MS RR as found in Wikipedia: "The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, NY to Chicago, primarily along the south shore of Lake Erie (in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio) and across northern Indiana. The line's trackage is still used as a major rail transportation corridor and hosts Amtrak passenger trains, with the ownership in 1998 split at Cleveland between CSX to the west and Norfolk Southern in the east." By 1873 Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt had purchased the LS & MS and incorporated it into the New York Central Railroad. He needed this line to connect New York to Chicago.

The post card was made by the Union News Company.

The following information is from the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City: It was based in New York between 1908 and 1969 this was a wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Company they became major distributors of postcards and other printed items through their newsstands at hotels, rail and subway stations. Their cards were published by a variety of different companies including American News, Curt Teich, Robbins Brothers, and Valentine & Sons. Sometimes only their logo appears on a card, but it is often hand stamped on cards not originally published for them.

The post card was received in Norwalk, Ohio on September 5, 1911. There is no postmark to say when it was sent. Evidently, a young lady is keeping her mother posted about her whereabouts and their well-being. We can’t tell if this is a honeymoon or two people travelling for a different reason. It says that they are going to Angola, which is in the northeast corner of Indiana.

Another Cripple Creek R.R. and Another Automobile

In my last blog posting, I wrote about the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad. This post card is a picture of a train on that line.

Just to remind you, here is a quote from the previous posting: “During 1894 a narrow-gauge line, known as the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad was built at a cost of $500,000. The Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad extended forty miles and reached the district from the Arkansas River to the south in 1894.”

It is at a spot on the line called Rock Creek. It is hard to find anything on line about this particular spot.

When you turn the card over there isn't a lot of information about the printer or publisher of this card, either. That flag wrapped around its staff and pointing to the left can be found on many of the post cards in my collection. I haven't confirmed yet, but I think it is a mark of the publisher, Van-Noy Interstate (although many of their cards have the name on the left side of the card). But, I wouldn't bet my life on it.

The card was mailed on August 31, 1911 at 3:30 in the afternoon. It is being sent to Racine, Wisconsin. In the message Alfred is telling the receivers that he had spent all day in an automobile (from 8 AM to 6 PM) and he saw the whole town - it was mailed from Denver, Colorado.

A Hybrid Card

The Front of the Card: This is a beautiful shot of St. Peter's Dome. It is a very obvious formation in the foothills near Pikes Peak. It is a hiking destination today, but it was a very popular site back in the Colorado gold rush days. People traveling between Colorado Springs and the Cripple Creek area via steam trains saw this beautiful outcropping of rock as they passed under it. Today, the railroad tracks are gone, but it is still a hiking destination for those in the know.

Regarding the Steam Train in the picture, it belongs to the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District Railway. During 1894 a narrow-gauge line, known as the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad was built at a cost of $500,000. The Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad extended forty miles and reached the district from the Arkansas River to the south in 1894. This was quickly followed by the standard gauge Midland Terminal Railway coming from a connection with the Colorado Midland Railway to the north. This one was thirty miles long and cost $25,000 per mile to construct. The two railroads, competitive at first, joined forces forming a monopoly. Mine owners with mills in Colorado City adjacent to Colorado Springs organized and built The Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek Railroad or "Short Line" which traversed the south slope of Pikes Peak and went under St. Peter’s Dome. The new railroad was able to force freight rates downward accelerating production. At peak capacity, the Midland Terminal Railway operated ten trains a day. One train carried parlor cars and sleepers and offered champagne dinners on overnight excursions from Denver. Freight cars hauled coal, lumber, explosives, machinery, fruit and other luxuries. Outbound, the same cars carried ore for delivery to reduction mills at the western edge of Colorado Springs. The name was changed to Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District Railway on November 17, 1899. An extension to Colorado Springs opened in April 1901. The Colorado and Southern Railway directed operations from 1904 to 1911.
Losing money due to competition from the Florence and Cripple Creek Railway and the Midland Terminal Railway, the Colorado and Southern Railway leased the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District Railway to the Florence and Cripple Creek in 1911. In 1915 this lease was transferred to the Cripple Creek Central Railway, which also controlled the Midland Terminal Railway.
By 1917 most rail traffic in the area was directed to the Midland Terminal Railway. The loss of the Bear Creek Bridge in May 1918 cut off all direct traffic from Colorado Springs. Bankruptcy was declared in 1919, at which time it went into receivership. All operations ceased in 1920 and the line was sold for scrap.

The post card, at first glance, looks like it came from the pre-March 1, 1907 era. There is lots of space to the right of the picture to write a very short message. We saw a card like this in one of my earlier posts of July 28, 2013. Unfortunately, I do not know who the publisher or the printer of this post card are.

The Back of the Card: The first thing that strikes me when I turn the card over is that it is not from the pre-March 1st era. It is actually a divided back card. Three things tell me this: 1) the postmark is March 2, 1909; 2) there is a line down the middle of the card; and 3) permission has been granted to write on the left side of the card (using a one-cent stamp).

The message is priceless: "I was out to see the balance rock last Sunday. I went out there in an auto. Sure had a fine time. Anna started to school today. ---Lizzie" This was back in 1909, auto's were a rare sight; and Lizzie got to ride in one!! Henry Ford started his company on June 16, 1903 - a mere 6 years earlier. It must have been a thrill to ride in one of those new fangled machines known as "Tin Lizzies".