What the Heck is MOBRIDGE?

The bridge in this post card picture no longer exists. But before I tell you why, let me give you a bit of history. The bridge was built by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad. The following history was taken from this website: https://southdakota.com/cities/mobridge-sd/ In the late 1800’s white settlers began to move onto the land that is presently Mobridge, standing on land that was once owned by General S.E. Olson. A thought came to him when he was goose hunting in 1885 that this was the place the Milwaukee Railroad would cross the Missouri River. He remarked to his friends this would be a grand crossing for the Milwaukee. The phrase grand crossing stuck and a corporation was formed named Grand Crossing and Improvement Company. A telegrapher’s dots and dashes gave Mobridge its name when the town formed, as railroad crews were building the railroad bridge across the Missouri River. He ended his telegraph transmissions with M.O.Bridge. The Milwaukee Railroad reached Mobridge on September 9, 1906, and the first lot was sold on October 3, 1906. The bridge was demolished by the Corps of Engineers in the early 1960s and replaced by a higher bridge due to the construction of the Oahe Dam. From this website I picked up the following tidbit of information "MO.Bridge" Historical Marker (hmdb.org) There is a historical marker at the site of the old bridge. It reads, “In 1906, one hundred years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through this area, Milwaukee Railroad crews labored to build a bridge across the Missouri River. They carefully worked, balancing themselves on high metal beams as the sound of hammers resonated across the water. Once completed in 1905, trains filled with homesteaders could now venture to the last of the open range. This bridge, though no longer standing, was an icon for western movement and the town's namesake. An unknown telegraph operator sent word of the bridge's location as succinctly as possible, and with his abbreviated dots and dashes, he intended to convey "Missouri Bridge," and consequently gave MO.Bridge (Mobridge, South Dakota) its name.

The post card was printed and published by the same company as last week's post card: The Detroit Publishing Company. This one, too, is a PHOSTINT CARD.

A Kentucky Train at the Gulf Coast

The L & N in the caption of this post card picture (lower left corner) stands

for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Below is a bit of history about how a Kentucky and Tennessee based railroad came to be on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The history is taken from this website. http://www.lnrr.org/History.aspx It was written by Charles B. Castner. I have truncated the story. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad was born March 5, 1850, when it was granted a charter by the Commonwealth of Kentucky “...to build a railroad between Louisville, Kentucky, and the Tennessee state line in the direction of Nashville." On December 4, 1851, an act of the Tennessee General Assembly authorized the company to extend its road from the Tennessee state line to Nashville. Laying of track began at Ninth Street and Broadway in Louisville in May of 1853. By 1855, the founding fathers of the L&N, most of them Louisville citizens, had raised nearly $3 million to finance the construction. The first train to operate over the railroad ran on August 25, 1855, when some 300 people traveled eight miles from Louisville at a speed of 15 mph! A little more than four years later, on October 27, 1859, the first train operated all the way from Louisville to Nashville, joining the two namesake cities. For all practical purposes, the 187-mile railroad was complete. Scheduled trains began running a few days later. The total cost of this original construction was $7 million. By the time the Civil War began in 1861, the L&N had 269 miles of track. Located almost in the middle of the opposing armies, the L&N at various times served both the Union and the Confederacy as the tides of war changed. Although the railroad suffered considerable damage during the war years, it emerged in surprisingly good financial condition. It was so well off, in fact, that at the close of the war the L&N began expanding. Within a period of 30 years, through construction and acquisition of existing short railroads, the L&N extended its tracks to St. Louis in Missouri, Cincinnati in Ohio, Birmingham and Mobile in Alabama, Pensacola in Florida,and New Orleans in Louisiana.

The railroad's entrance into the Gulf of Mexico ports came in 1881. A 140-mile rail line, including roughly nine miles of trestles and bridges, linked Mobile with New Orleans, but there was little contact with the outside world until the L&N extended its tracks to Mobile and then acquired the line on into New Orleans. This acquisition enabled the railroad to extend its sphere of influence to international markets for agricultural products and goods manufactured in major cities along the L&N. The postwar years brought swift, striking changes to railroading, as the L&N, which purchased its first diesel in 1939, retired its last steam locomotive in 1957. The L&N introduced streamlined passenger service with the advent of The Humming Bird and The Georgian, and gradually updated the equipment on such passenger trains as The Pan- American, The Piedmont Limited, The Crescent, The Azalean, The Dixie Flyer, The Flamingo and The Southland. During that year, however, the Seaboard Coastline Railroad, which had owned 35percent of the L&N's stock for many years, bought the remainder of the outstanding shares, and the L&N became the wholly-owned subsidiary of Seaboard Coast Line Industries. On December 31, 1982, the corporate entity known as the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company was officially merged into the Seaboard System Railroad, ending the L&N's 132-year existence under a single name. The Seaboard System quickly lost its own corporate identity as it and the Chessie System became CSX Transportation in 1986.

The post card was printed and published by the Detroit Photographic Company. It was started in 1898 in Detroit, Michigan. In 1907 they company started calling their post card printing process the “PHOSTINT CARD”. This card is one of the PHOSTINT CARDS. It was known, until 1905, as the Detroit Photographic Company, and then did business as the Detroit Publishing Company through 1924 when it was declared to be bankrupt.

Elegant, Mission-style Depot no longer there.

The station that replaced the train station on the front of the post card is described quite nicely on this website: https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/wm58PY_Great_Northern_Railway_Depot_Everett_Washington

The station was in operation serving passengers until the opening of the Everett Intermodal Station. It is still used by the BNSF Railway for office space but is no longer used for passenger service. The station is notable for the pocket park, maintained by volunteers with the cooperation of the BNSF Railway; see the link below. The depot is located at 2900 Bond St., Everett, WA. This does not appear to be the same building that was there in 1910. That building was a 'mission' style station with a low tower in the center as you can see on the post card. I have already blogged about the Great Northern Railway and James Hill in the past; I published it on November 2, 2022. However, I will add the following to the previous entry. It comes from this website: https://www.american-rails.com/great.html What became the Great Northern Railway (GN) was the work of a singe individual, James Jerome Hill. The legendary "Empire Builder" pieced together one of America's great transportation companies over the span of nearly four decades. It all began with the small St. Paul & Pacific and, by the time of his passing in 1917, the GN was a transcontinental carrier of more than 8,000 miles. Hill was a methodical, driven, and excellent railroader who was so good at his profession he sometimes worked as a consultant for others. The tycoon always planned his next move well in advance and was rarely caught off-guard. As a result, the superb management Hill instilled at Great Northern continued throughout its corporate existence.

The post card was published by Edward H. Mitchell. He was born April 27, 1867 in San Francisco - died from a heart attack in Palo Alto, California on October 24, 1932. Most of his postcards are about the West, he was very prolific, and his cards have great color for the time they were created. There are postcards being republished with other publishing companies that Mitchell owned or was a partner in, Pacific Novelty Co. and Souvenir Publishing Co. Mitchell rode the rails, which makes sense in his era. I am sure that he created many postcards about the railroads in exchange for discounted travel. I believe that is where the saying “The road of a thousand Wonders” which appears on many cards came from. Mitchell also was willing to have artists paint hats on people, he loved hats, and add other eye candy to sell postcards. At one point he was even putting sparkle on cards. All postcards printed after 1908 proudly proclaim 'Printed in the United States' on their backside. Edward H. Mitchell gave up postcard publishing around 1923.

A Short-lived History Caught in a Post Card

The history below is an edited version taken from this website: http://www.pnwc-nrhs.org/hs_or_n.html The Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company A brief history by Glenn Laubaugh Although the name itself has been long gone, what was once the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company (OR&N) and later the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation company (OWR&N), the railroad to which this post card refers in the upper right-hand corner in the title, is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and has been for over a century. In 1878 and 1879, purchase negotiations were held between Captain Ainsworth, who owned the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and its related portage railroad operations, and the newly incorporated Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. By March 31, 1880, all operation was being performed under the OR&N name. In mid-1883 the line became part of a transcontinental link, when the Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) was completed between Wallula and St. Paul, Min., providing the first all-rail link with the rest of the nation's railroad system. In 1906 through 1911, the ORR&N and the Oregon Trunk completed a railroad along

the Deschutes River (the river in the picture on this post card) into central Oregon. During this period, the company came to be called the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company. The Union Pacific had adopted the policy of building new railroads by using subsidiary companies, possibly to protect the parent company from possible financial disasters. The Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company was incorporated in Oregon in late 1910. In the 1930's, minor abandonments of the company's Oregon lines occurred. This included partial abandonment of the line to Homestead, as well as joint operation with the Spokane, Portland & Seattle of the Oregon Trunk railroad line from the Columbia River south to Bend. Other abandonments during this period were concentrated in Idaho and Washington, and therefore are not recorded here. From the 1930's through the 1960's, the railroad's main line was rebuilt to accommodate the various river dam projects constructed on the Snake River and Columbia River. As time went on, the O-WR&N name slowly fell into disuse. Although in later years steam locomotives still carried that name, the tenders of the locomotives had the Union Pacific emblem on them. All diesel locomotives came lettered and painted in Union Pacific colors, and therefore the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation company name become much less visible as time went on. Although corporate existence of the O-WR&N would continue afterward, for practical purposes of this brief history, the Union Pacific will be considered to have become the successor to the O-WR&N around 1950.

The post card was published by the short-lived Portland Post Card Company. The company only existed from 1908 to 1916. While it was around it published many view-cards of scenes from the American West coast including Alaska. They were the official publisher of postcards for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909.

The code in the bottom-center of the post card leads me to believe that it was printed by Curt Otto Teich. 1908-1928 Cards numbered A or R 1 to 124180. The cards they printed for Woolworth have a W prefix. The letter N prefix was used to designate a reprinted image from this series. The number at the bottom, when interpolated into their numbering system, put the card as being printed in 1913. That is a real possibility because the railroad company used that name in that year, too.

Adding to the Intrigue of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad

There is definitely a picture of a train on the front of this post card. However, the caption on the back does not tell us the type of locomotive it is. When one looks more closely, one can think that the reason they do not tell us what kind of locomotive it is, is because it is drawn in. They have drawn in a 4-6-4 (Hudson) engine.

The fact that the tracks are on the north shore of the Columbia River tells me that, more than likely, it is on the line owned by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway Company. On March 23, 2022 I blogged about how this company came into being and how it made it into Oregon, against all odds. It is a good read; I like rooting for the underdogs. The back of the post card tells us that this picture is of the Cape Horn Palisades and the North Bank Railroad tunnel. The following information was taken from this website: http://columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/north_bank_road.html The Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railroad, competitors in the transcontinental business, launched the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway in 1905 and built a line along the north side of the Columbia River. This line was known as "The North Bank Road", "The North Bank Railroad", "Columbia River Scenic Route", and "The Northwest’s Own Railway". The tracks were started in October 1905 and completed in February 1908, with a celebration being held on March 11th at Sheridan Point upstream of the Fort Rains Blockhouse location. On March 19th, regular passenger service between Vancouver and Pasco was begun. The journey took eight hours.

The post card was printed by our good friend, Curt Otto Teich. The code at the top of the card (A-55943) gives a hint that this may have been printed in 1917. The post card is from the White Border Era, so the year is a real possibility. This website: http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/post_card_history.html tells us about the publisher, Lipschuetz & Katz from Portland, Oregon. Oregon’s biggest event happened just as Post Cards began to boom in popularity. The Lewis & Clark Exposition opened in 1905 as Portland took center stage in its own World’s Fair. This event was single-handedly responsible for the production of 450 different post cards. Beautiful European-produced lithographs made up the bulk of these post cards. Also produced at the fair were leather, wood, copper and aluminum post cards. Several Portland post card publishers got their start at the Lewis & Clark Expo: B.B. Rich and D.M. Averill, as well as E.P. Charlton. Lipschuetz & Katz started publishing post cards in the years after the Expo.

Two Ten-Wheelers

Both of these locomotives are waiting for their departure times to arrive. They are at the North Freedom Depot at North Freedom, Wisconsin. Both trains will take passengers on a nine mile round-trip, through the rolling counryside of Sauk County Wisconsin. This is the first locomotive. The information about it was taken from this website: Western Coal & Coke #1 – https://www.midcontinent.org/equipment-roster/steam-locomotives/western-coal-coke-1/ WC&C #1 was built by the Montreal Locomotive Co. in Canada, in 1913, for coal hauling service at Beaver Mines, Alberta. WC&C later became Royalties Oil & Share Corp., and eventually merged with Lethbridge Collieries, Ltd., in 1935. The locomotive was last used in 1964 at Plyami, Alberta. It was purchased by a group of museum members and moved to North Freedom on two flatcars, arriving at the museum on October 30, 1965. At first glance, #1 would appear a rather simple design for a locomotive of the 1910’s. In fact, its blueprint can be traced back to a group of similar engines, albeit straight-boilered, built by the Pittsburgh Locomotive Works for various American roads as B&LE, Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, and Duluth Missabi & Northern in the late 1880’s. By the early 1900’s they became obsolete and many found their way to Canada via equipment dealers. The construction of the National Transcontinental Railway across Canada brought a need for low-speed workhorse locomotives to assist with construction. A group of about 15 engines were built by Montreal to the old Pittsburgh design. So successful they were, many copies were ordered by Canadian public and private railways, thereby saving on engineering/redesign costs. WC&C #1 is one such example. MCRM’s shop forces brought WC&C #1 back to life by 1970. She served as duty engine at the museum for many years during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1991, she received a new wooden cab. She is coal fired, weighs 55 tons in working order, and features a rare chain firedoor that challenges the scoop shovel skills of Mid-Continent firemen. WC&C #1 is presently out of service, and receiving a rebuild by the museum’s shop forces, including major repairs to the boiler shell and running gear. The information about the second locomotive was taken from this website: Warren & Ouachita Valley #1 - www.rgusrail.com The Warren & Ouachita Valley Railway Company was incorporated in 1899 and was controlled by the Arkansas Lumber Company (50%) and the Southern Lumber Company (50%). The line ran sixteen miles from a connection with the Iron Mountain in Warren to Banks, AR, where it connected with the Rock Island. It carried lumber for the parent companies from mills along the line, as well as providing passenger services. Built by Burnham, Williams & Company, an early incarnation of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, PA, this Ten Wheeler (4-6-0) locomotive joined the roster in 1906 and was the only steam locomotive owned by the company.

The picture was taken by Jeff B. Haertlein and the post card was published by the operator of the two locomotives, Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, Inc. in North Freedom, Wisconsin. It seems that Jeff was born in 1951 and at the writing of this post is still living in Freedom, WI.

They Just Keep Getting Bigger!!

Last week's featured locomotive had a 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement. The Western Pacific Locomotive pictured on the front of this post card has graduated to a 2-8-8-2 wheel arrangement - also a Mallet locomotive. This one was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadephia, Pennsylvania in 1938. Just like last week, this locomotive in the picture was owned by Western Pacific Railway. The story of the railroad company is in the blog from two weeks ago so I will not repeat it here. When built, the 2-8-8-2s of the Western Pacific Railroad were among the most powerful steam locomotives in the world. They were not fast; but, they were powerful!! Just like last week, the post card was published by Bob Fremming.