Several years ago, I posted menus from the Chung collection that featured steamships on the cover. One showed the Empress of Japan along with some sights people might see in Asia, possibly on a Canadian Pacific world cruise. On my Canadian Pacific menu series page, I included this with other menus that featured cruise ships or steamships even though the Empress of Japan menu was actually used in a dining car.

Click image to download a 1.4-MB PDF of this menu.

The fine print on that menu noted that 1931 was the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It turns out that the railway did a series of menus celebrating that anniversary. As an economy during the Depression, the menus all featured black-and-white covers. The cover on today’s menu represents Angus Shops where Canadian Pacific built hundreds of steam locomotives as well as many of its freight and passenger cars.

Unlike the Union Pacific, which celebrated the anniversaries of the completion of its line from Omaha to Promontory, Canadian Pacific dated its anniversary to the year the railroad was incorporated, which took place the day after the Canadian parliament agreed to subsidize completion of a Pacific railway. The railway had not yet laid a single rail then but was able to start service to Vancouver in 1886.

The drawing on the cover of this menu (along with the one on the Empress of Japan menu) is signed M. Leone Bracker (1885-1937). Born in Cleveland Ohio, Michael Leone Bracker became interested in art at an early age and entered the Cleveland School of Art at just 15, later studying at the Art Student’s League in New York. He opened a studio in New York City and illustrated books, magazines, and posters, as well as ads for General Motors, Cream of Wheat, Pilsbury’s, and many other companies and products.

While some of his illustrations were in full-color, more often (as in these menu covers) he worked in pencil or charcoal. Unfortunately, he was not quite 52 when he drowned while on a picnic in Rye New Hampshire, leaving behind a wife and two daughters. In his obituary, the Boston Globe wrote that his illustrations “probably have been reproduced more times than those of any other artist anywhere.”

This is an a la carte menu for a mid-day meal on Canadian Pacific’s Imperial, CP’s premiere passenger train at the time except for the summer-only Trans-Canada Limited. The menu lists salmon or cod for fish and the usual variety of roasts, steaks, and chops as well as eggs, salads, and desserts.