We’ve previously seen a 1951 menu of this style featuring a train in the Royal Gorge, but that menu showed a heavyweight train pulled by Diesels in Rio Grande’s black with yellow stripes color scheme. Today’s menus from 1953 and … Continue reading
Category Archives: D&RGW
This menu cover features Mount Sopris behind the Crystal River, a 40-mile-long stream that feeds into the Roaring Fork River at Carbondale, which in turn feeds into the Colorado at Glenwood Springs. “In the romantic Rocky Mountains,” the back cover … Continue reading
As noted on the back of this menu, Colorado aspens, more properly known as quaking aspens, are known both for turning gold in the fall and for their leaves that tremble in the gentlest breeze. The menu doesn’t say so, … Continue reading
Glenwood Springs is featured on the cover of this 1947 menu. The back cover explains that spring waters emerge from the ground at 127 degrees and have to be cooled with “clear, cold mountain water” to 84 degrees for use … Continue reading
Before it purchased dome cars for the California Zephyr and other streamlined trains, the Rio Grande made a narrow-gauge dome car, of sorts, for its scenic line between Durango and Silverton. The car had a glass roof with open sides … Continue reading
Here’s another menu I bought thinking I didn’t already have one when it turned out I did. Worse, like this one, the one I already had is a 1946 lunch menu. The good news is this one is a normal … Continue reading
The grandiose building on the cover of this menu is now (and was in 1944 when the menu was issued) the Redstone Inn. It was built in 1902 to be the home of John Cleveland Osgood, an entrepreneur who made … Continue reading
I love these Rio Grande menus with the pasted-on color photographs. Although nowhere as numerous as the Union Pacific color photo menus, every time I think I must have them all I find a couple more. I’ve previously found 19, … Continue reading
I’m not sure that a defunct mine was the best way to advertise Colorado, especially as it is a tacit admission that the mineral revenues that helped pay the Rio Grande’s bills were drying up. In 1943, when this menu … Continue reading
Unlike the stories on the backs of the black-and-white photo menus shown in the past few days, the stories on the back of the pastel menus that Rio Grande began using in 1938 were related to the cover images. This … Continue reading