Though this issue of West is undated, it offers a clue by showing a picture of the City of San Francisco with the caption saying, “The second City of San Francisco will start early in July.” Since that train began operating in July, 1941, this is probably the June, 1941, issue give or take a month.
Click image to download a 7.1-MB PDF of this brochure.
Judging from the interior photos, Southern Pacific’s “Old West” was mostly in California, though it also included the Alamo, El Paso, Mission San Xavier in Tucson, Jacksonville, Oregon, and Virginia City, Nevada. That contrasts sharply with my view of the Old West, which would mainly be in Wyoming and Montana with a possible detour through Monument Valley, Arizona.
Wyoming and Montana, to some degree, sould be considered the “young west” compared to places like California and Nevada that were occupied by non-native people much earlier. In that respect, California and Nevada being the “old west” is pretty accurate. In Nevada, the links back to the old west lasted a long time. I remember playing in the Carson City Nugget in 1966 with grizzled old prospectors in town to spend their poke from their mine or placer operation. One of them even had a mule tied up outside. Unfortunately, those days are long gone.
Regards, Jim