In contrast to yesterday’s postcard ads from the early 1910s, these cards from the Minnesota Historical Center appear to be from the 1930s. The first advertises a North Coast Limited that comes with a “club car with library, writing desk, buffet, barber shop, valet service, bath and other comforts.” That appears to date it to 1930, which I believe is the year NP added such a club car to the train.
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Exploring the upper Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis encountered a series of deep canyons he called the “Gates of the Mountains. Although celebrated in the postcard below, no railroad used this route and it is considered wilderness today. The ad on the back quotes from Lewis’ journal and encourages passengers to take a side trip to the gates by boat from Helena, Montana.
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“Not one, but a hundred mountain peaks,” says the ad on the back of the postcard below. “Not one, but a score of scenic lakes.” A score? Try hundreds. (I would have said a score of mountain peaks because to me a peak has to have a glacier to be called a mountain.) In any case, the card illustrates a mountain and lake that happen to no longer exist.
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If the above three cards date to around 1930, the one below can be firmly dated to 1939 or soon thereafter. It shows at least 32 dining car waiters carrying great big baked potatoes in the 1939 St. Paul Winter Sports Carnival parade. Unlike the previous three cards, this one actually has a small space for a message and room for an address, though it hasn’t been postally used.
Click image to download a 300-KB PDF of this postcard.