We’ve previously seen a large (9-2/3″x13-1/2″) 1931 booklet encouraging people to take a seven-day tour of historic sites in Virginia and Washington DC. At 4-1/5″x7-2/3″, this undated booklet is more compact but covers the same ground. Perhaps falling into the deceptions of the Lost Cause school of thought, the C&O apparently regarded “history” as being mostly about the Civil War.

Click image to download a 10.8-MB PDF of this 24-page tabloid booklet.

But why does the cover of this booklet show someone who is dressed like one of the Three Musketeers? Some Jamestown colonists may have dressed a little like that, but Jamestown had no coaches-and-four similar to the one shown in the background.

Inside, the booklet unfolds into pages of two different sizes. Most of the pages are about 7-7/8″x7-2/3″, but a large map in the back is 12″x7-2/3″. Whoever designed this booklet left the back of the map completely blank, which was a waste of space as C&O could have listed hotels, a tour itinerary, or other useful information for travelers. While the booklet does say that all-expense tours are available, it doesn’t go into as much detail about such tours as the 1931 booklet, and that information could have been printed on the back of the map at no extra cost.

While this booklet is undated, it does mention that all C&O trains “are genuinely airconditioned.” “Non-genuine” air conditioning may have referred to “pre-cooling” of cars — pumping cool air into the cars before they left the station and hoping they would stay cool for the duration of the trip. This practice had completely ended by 1940, so the booklet is probably from before then.

When C&O introduced the George Washington in 1932, it was the world’s first overnight air-conditioned train. It air conditioned all of its sleeping cars in 1933 but didn’t finish air conditioning coaches until 1936. That suggests this booklet must be from the late 1930s.