In the late 1930s, Southern Pacific had a series of wrap-around black-and-white photo menus that perhaps inspired Union Pacific/Southern Pacific’s post-war wrap-around color photo menus. This one shows Yosemite Valley, “off our San Joaquin Valley Route in California.” Unlike the later color photo menus, this photo fills the full width of the open menu.
Click image to download a 1.7-MB PDF of this menu.
This particular unpriced dinner menu offers a choice of salmon, chicken, or lamb. The menu was used aboard the “president’s special” en route to the American Library Association convention in San Francisco. As it happens, I’ve previously shown a Great Northern bookmark that mentions an American Library Association convention in San Francisco, which is how I was able to date that bookmark to 1939.
Fish, mutton, or chicken. These three seem to be the SP standard for tour menus. It’s not bad (except for the sheep), but some kind of beef or pork would be nice. The US wasn’t at war yet, so it’s not like anything was rationed. I think the SP didn’t like cows and pigs.
Jim