Almost Twins

These two post cards look exactly alike. The picture is the same; the wording at the bottom is the same. They are both pictures of the top of Pike’s Peak. The wording says it is the “Summit of Pike’s Peak, Altitude 14,147 Feet” on both cards. They both indicate that they are copyrighted. The space to the right is the same and for the same purpose – for the sender to write a message.

What is the difference? Let’s play “I Spy”! The words on the card to the left are smaller. The picture and words are just a bit lower on the card. Now let’s play “I Feel”. The card on the right is actually embossed. If you run your fingers over the card, you can feel the indentations.

Turning the post cards over, they look very similar, too. They both say “POST-CARD.” at the top and remind everyone that “THIS SIDE IS EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE ADDRESS.” in accord with the government standards.

There is no indicator as to who the printer or publisher is. I published the one on the right in my blog on October 13th last month. I received an e-mail from someone who had read the blog that the publisher was Williamson-Haffner. Unfortunately, when I responded to the e-mail I also erased the original message so I cannot give you the credit you deserve for pointing this out. The sender also told me the name of the artist – which is now unretrieveably lost.

We can tell that the post cards were printed from between 1901 and 1906. I say 1901 because it was in 1901 that the government allowed printers to change the wording from Private Mailing Card to Post Card. And I say 1906 because the post mark on the back of the card on the right was mailed in 1906. If it was printed by the Williamson-Haffner Company, then the post cards were printed in 1905. The company started that year and the postmark on the second card is from July 26, 1906.

If He Only Knew

This post card is a picture of one of the steam engines pushing a passenger car up the cog railroad toward Pike’s Peak in Colorado. The title at the bottom of the card reads: “Shady Springs Colorado Ascending Pike’s Peak, on the Cog Road.” In searching for what the Shady Springs Colorado means, all I could find was a map of Douglas County that contained a historical site called “Lucas Dairy / Shady Springs Ranch”.

It is in the southeast sector of the map, so it is northeast of Pike’s Peak – but close, so to speak. It is in the next county south – El Paso. This is definitely NOT a scientific conclusion, but I suspect some line between the two. Maybe it is the name of the passenger coach being pushed up the mountain. If you look carefully at the top, middle of the post card you can see the Summit House, the destination of the passengers in the coach.

This post card was printed by the American News Company (ANC). On the back,

in the top left corner you can see the logo of the ANC. It was printed in Germany prior to World War I. The used a process that is reflected in the logo of the ANC. The banner over a 3-leafed clover says “Poly-Chrome”. Poly-Chrome describes a post card printed in continuous tone lithography. Its colors are bright and so flat that they almost resemble screen-prints. The poly-chrome process was almost exclusively used before 1907. Other European publishers also used the same process but without the Poly-Chrome name. Prefixed A (1903-1907). This card is numbered A6447.

Cards with the Poly-chrome name were also printed in the United States during the First World War, with an M prefix and white borders, but these lithographic cards have a grained texture. They were not always published by the American News Company. As you can see, this one was published by the Colorado News Company. This post card was published by the Colorado News Company. On the left edge you can see the number of the card and the words that tell us that it was published by the Colorado News Company. It was but one of many News Companies owned by the ANC. I have post cards from the Colorado News Company, the Oregon News Company, the St. Louis News Company, and the Union News Company. These are just a few of the affiliates of the ANC.

The postmark on the card confirms that it was printed between 1903 and 1907 because it was mailed on March 5, 1907. The back of the card still says that the back is for the address only, so I suspect it was earlier in this period rather than later. Just before March 1, 1907 the printers added a phrase telling the purchasers that after March 1st a message could be included on the back of the card. This one only has a short message on the front that reads, “My dear…. Hope you are feeling as well as I am….” Because this card was mailed after March 1, 1907 the writer could have put the address on the right side of the back of the card and actually expanded the message so he could elaborate about how well he was feeling! If he only knew.

Third in a Series

The picture on this post card is of one of the steam engines pushing a passenger car up the steep incline on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. Does this sound familiar? These are the opening words on my last two blog posts. In looking through my collection last week, I found a third G.W. Morris post card that very accurately reflects the concept that the sky on many of their cards was added in by hand.

This post card is the third in a series of G.W. Morris post cards that illustrate post card history.

The title on the front is “Jacob’s Ladder, Mt. Washington, N.H.”. This post card was mailed one year before the steam engine #9 Waumbek is to be delivered to Mt. Washington. It is going to be the last new locomotive delivered to the railway for 65 years. In 1973 the next new engine will be #10 the Colonel Teague. It is also the first engine to be built in their own shop.

This card might look strangely familiar – like the first card that I blogged about two weeks ago. Jacob’s Ladder is now brown and there are hand-drawn clouds in the sky. The picture is larger on the card, too.

This is because this is another G.W. Morris post card of the Mount Washington Steam Railway. They used the same picture as the card from two weeks ago, then, added some color and clouds.

Here is the big difference:

This post card was mailed after March 1, 1907. The message could be added to the back of the card, so the picture on the front could be enhanced. It is interesting to see that six months after the law allowing a message on the back was enacted, the sender of this card still wrote a message on the front of the card.

Hand Drawn Sky and The Missing Link

The picture on this post card is of one of the steam engines pushing a passenger car up the steep incline on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. Does this sound familiar? These are the opening words on my last blog post. In looking through my collection, I found another G.W. Morris post card that very accurately reflects the concept that the sky on many of their cards was added in by hand. This post card was also printed in Germany.

The title on the front is “Mount Washington and Railroad”. You can see the cog running between the rails to take the train safely up to the top. And at the top, you can see the building waiting for the tourists. The building at the top is not named on the post card, but it is probably the Tip-Top House, built in 1853.

I am not as excited about this post card as I was about the one in the previous blog post. However, I am glad that I have it. It is an example of the “missing link” cards that were printed between the Private Mailing Cards congress allowed in 1898 and the cards that were the result of the new postal regulations of December 24th, 1901, the words Post Card replaced Private Mailing Card on the backs of privately manufactured cards.

cards that included a space for a message next to the address which congress allowed after March 1, 1907.

Some Very Steep Climbs

The picture on this post card is of one of the steam engines pushing a passenger car up the steep incline on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.

The whole railway is known as the Mt. Washington Railway Company; we are looking at Jacob’s Ladder. You can see the white trestle woodwork that would have spawned the name.

A short history: Sylvester Marsh was born in New Hampshire in 1803; he worked very hard, moved to Chicago, patented a few mechanisms and got rich. When he retired he moved to Boston. While hiking Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, he was caught in some very bad weather and decided to use his ingenuity to make the trip to the top of the mountain safer for all who followed. In 1858 he applied to the state for a permit to build a steam railway up the mountain. At the same time, he applied for the patent of the cog drive system that would safely take the train to the top of the mountain. At the same time he formed the Mount Washington Steam Railway Company. In 1868 the Jacob’s Ladder section was built and finally, on July 3rd of 1869 the first trip up the mountain was made.

I have many post cards of this railway, so I will expand the story with each post card that I post on this blog.

This post card was printed in Germany (as were so many others before World War I broke out) for the publisher G. W. Morris. This company was headquartered in Portland, Maine. They published pictorial books before they reached out into field of the post card. Most of their post cards were of the Northeast United States, especially New Hampshire and Maine. On many of their post cards the sky is actually drawn in on the scene giving the post cards published by the G. W. Morris Company a distinctive and identifiable look. They started with cards printed in Germany using the continuous tone lithography method. After World War I they contracted out their halftone cards to Curt Teich. The company existed from 1901 to 1922.

Part of my excitement about this post card is not the front, but the back. It reflects the steep climb that the post card industry had to face in the early stages of its growth. It is an official “Private Mailing Card.”

These cards were the first ones that the U.S. government allowed to be printed by presses owned by private companies. They could not use the title Post Card because those were only to be printed by the U. S. government. But, by a generous act of congress on May 19, 1898 private companies were allowed to print and sell their own cards which the purchaser could actually send through the mail like a post card. One could still not write on the back of the post card; that was not allowed until March 1, 1907 through an act of another generous congress.

This post card was sent on August 18, 1905 from New Hampshire to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. But Florence Jameson must have moved and not told Cora. So, someone scratched out the original address and scribbled “Woodstock, Conn.” It arrived in Woodstock on August 21st.

What a Difference Fourteen Years Can Make

This postcard is a picture of “The Portals in the Canyon of the Grand River”.

As you can see, it is aptly named: A portal is an entry point into something. In this case it is a canyon along the Grand River in Garfield County in the state of Colorado.

The picture was taken by William Henry Jackson who lived from 1843 to 1942. The picture show striated rock formations in the Glenwood Canyon formed by the Grand River. In the bottom left we can see some talus from the rock formations above this point. The train tracks we see belong to the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad; it is part of their Glenwood Extension.

If you went looking for this point using the title on the postcard, you would easily either get lost or never find it. This post card was published before March 1, 1907. At that time the river was called the Grand River; today it is known as the Colorado River. Fourteen years later, on July 25, 1921 Congress passed a bill authored by Ed Taylor to rename the Grand River to the Colorado River. It didn’t rename the entire river; it simply extended the name of the Colorado River up into the state to one of the sources of the river in Grand County. You can read the actual bill here: http://lib.colostate.edu/archives/water/grand.html

Because of the research I have done around this postcard I have had to rearrange my postcard collection. I have assumed that the Grand River referred to the river that goes through the Royal Gorge in Colorado – not so!

The postcard was published by Frank S. Thayer. Based in Denver, he published many books, several of which included beautiful scenery from the state of Colorado.

I can see how he might have extended the objects he published from books to postcards after looking at some of the books he published. In 1899 he published “Colorado in Color and Song” by J.W. Wright and Frank H. Mayer. He also formed a partnership with Charles Roscoe Savage a prolific photographer. In 1866, Savage photographed his 9000 mile tour of North America. Savage travelled extensively along the transcontinental railroad photographing its construction. He photographed the completion of the railroad at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. Savage also produced scenic views of the West in cartes-de-visites form. In the 1880s, Savage formed a partnership with Frank S. Thayer, to produce a series of guidebooks to Utah.

This postcard also records a bit of history. On the back it reminds us that prior to March 1, 1907 only the address could be written on the back of a picture postcard. Then congress passed a bill that said that after March 1, 1907 the right side of a postcard back was to contain the address while the left side could hold a message from the sender to the receiver.

Pike's Peak or Bust

Summit of Pike’s Peak

Needless to say, Pike’s Peak was there long before Lieutenant Zebulon Pike first saw it in November of 1806. The resident Ute Indians were very familiar with the mountain as were the Spanish as they explored the area.

Pike’s Peak began its relationship with the railroads soon after its discovery. The founder of the Denver and Rio Grande Rail Road loved it so much he made his home near the mountain and promoted tourists to drop by and see the mountain as they travelled on his railroad. It became quite a popular tourist destination and people found many creative ways to get to the summit.

One of these tourists was the owner of the Simmons Mattress Company. He rode a mule for two days in order to reach the top of the mountain. When he returned the owner of the hotel in which he was staying planed the idea of a railroad eventually taking people to the summit. Agreeing that people needed to see the beauty, he began gathering the capital necessary to build that railroad. The Manitou and Pike’s Peak Railway Company was founded in 1889. On the afternoon of June 30th, 1891, a church choir from Denver, Colorado became the first passengers on the first train to make it to the summit.

Fifteen years later this post card depicting the summit of Pike’s Peak was mailed. It shows one of the steam engines from the Baldwin Locomotive Works used on the cog railroad that lifted passengers up to the top. The Summit House, which is also shown on the front of the post card, has undergone several metamorphoses.

The Summit House began as a signal station for the US Signal Services in 1873. This building was replaced by a larger one to accommodate the many tourists that were climbing to the summit. A homestead, consisting of one log cabin, was added to the peak in 1886. The signal station was closed in 1888, but tourists continued to use it for shelter. In 1892 the railroad received permission to reconstruct the signal house for the use of their customers; it could accommodate 15 guests, had a lunch counter and a gift shop. Around 1900 the summit house was enlarged and refitted. This is the one we see on the front of the post card.

The post card is from the Undivided Back Era, which ended on March 1, 1907. There are two postmarks on the card. The first one, July 26, 1906 is the date that it was sent from Burlington, Colorado at 5:00PM. The second one, July 27, 1906, is the date that it was received in Omaha, Nebraska at 10 AM.

The picture on the front of the post card is embossed. You can run your fingers over the card and feel the picture. I have several picture post cards of Pike’s Peak similar to this one. But, there is no indication of who the printer or the publisher are.