Yesterday’s vista-dome Christmas brochure provides a nice segue into a series of Northern Pacific postcards that I photographed at the Minnesota History Center. Over the years, Northern Pacific issued hundreds if not thousands of postcards of Yellowstone Park, and these date to about 1912.
Click image to download a 274-KB PDF of this postcard.
Although the cards don’t say so, these were printed by a Chicago postcard company called Acmegraph, which existed from 1908 to 1918, a period that roughly coincides with the Golden Age of postcards. Acmegraph gladly printed cards for NP with the railway’s name on them, and the only indication that they came from Acmegraph is the file number shown on the front of most of the cards. This first card shows NP tracks along the Yellowstone River on the railway’s main line east of Livingston.
Click image to download a 274-KB PDF of this postcard.
From Livingston, Yellowstone-bound passengers headed south on NP’s line to Gardiner. At nearly 11,000 feet, Emigrant Peak is a major landmark along the way and is usually more visible than this card would indicate.
Click image for a larger view.
Although Acmegraph’s Yellowstone photos list no photographer, most, if not all, are based on photos by Frank Jay Haynes, a St. Paul photographer who became known as the official photographer of Yellowstone and who also had worked for Northern Pacific. Above is Hayne’s black-and-white photo of Emigrant Peak that was used for this postcard.
Click image to download a 250-KB PDF of this postcard.
This postcard shows Eagle’s Nest Rock (sometimes called Eagle Nest Rock) as seen from the train between Livingston and Gardiner.
Click image for a larger view.
Here is Haynes’ black-and-white photo on which the postcard is based.
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Detroit Publishing Company, which was probably Acmegraph’s largest competitor, had its own postcard of Eagle’s Nest Rock, probably based on a photo by William Henry Jackson. Though the photos are colored very differently, the originals would have been black and white so colors were up to the artists. Artists may have also drawn in the eagles to give the name a little more authenticity.
According to Google maps, this rock is visible from the highway today, but it appears somewhat eroded from the rock shown in the century-old postcards.
Click image to download a 360-KB PDF of this postcard.
Eventually, the train arrived at Gardiner station, whose platform was curved to follow the loop that allowed trains to turn around. This photo may have been taken by Haynes.
Haynes sold his photos to several companies, and the one above is the same scene from a slightly different angle. Acmegraph’s postcard must be based on a different photo, but it was probably taken by Haynes.
Click image to download a 311-KB PDF of this postcard.
In 1912, when these cards were first issued, passengers would have entered the park by passing under the Roosevelt Arch in a horse-drawn carriage or stagecoach. This is definitely a Haynes photo; below is another postcard version of the same image whose artist colored it to look like a rosy sunrise.
