Union Pacific 1956 Calendar

Four photos in the 1956 calendar were also used on menus, and one of those — the December photo of Sun Valley skiers — was repeated on the December 1959 calendar. Some of the photos are trite: Dream Lake, the Sun Valley Opera House, Hoover Dam, Sun Valley skiers, and the Mormon Temple. But others offer new views: Los Angeles city hall with the Union Station patio in the foreground; Mt. Carmel Highway in Zion Park; a view of the Tetons with their shapes mimicked by aspen trees in the foreground; and Wyoming’s Snowy Range.


Click image to download a 20.2-MB PDF of this calendar.

Union Pacific’s 16-page calendars were really printed on four sheets, but I’ve departed from my usual practice of presenting pieces exactly as they are. Instead, I’ve presented them in roughly calendric order. But they can be rearranged to be like the originals as follows: Continue reading

Union Pacific 1955 Calendar

Four photos on the 1955 calendar were also used on menus, more than the previous two years combined. Two of those photos had previously been used on a UP calendar: May’s Bryce Canyon (May, 1951) and August’s Lake Marie (October, 1952). November’s Columbia River was similar but not identical to a photo used on the November, 1945 calendar (and repeated in 1950).

Click image to download a 19.6-MB PDF of this calendar.

Photos of Hoover Dam, the Mormon Temple, Old Faithful, and Sun Valley weren’t used on other calendars or menus but are so similar to some that were that they might as well have been. December’s Hoover Dam photo, for example, appears to have been taken just seconds apart from a photo on the February, 1959 calendar (which was also used on a menu). Continue reading

Union Pacific 1954 Calendar

Only two photos in the 1954 calendar were also used on menus (one of which also appeared on the 1950 calendar), but many more seem familiar because they are slightly different versions of scenes depicted on so many other calendars. The Mormon Temple, Old Faithful, Sun Valley Lodge, the Great White Throne, Bryce Canyon, horses in Sun Valley, Grand Canyon, Mt. Hood, Jackson Lake, Hoover Dam — all the usual suspects.


Click image to download a 20.2-MB PDF of this calendar.
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The Mount Hood photo includes two hikers and an interesting rock formation in the foreground; Hoover Dam, the Great White Throne, and a Colorado stream also show hikers while Bryce has a half-dozen horseback riders whose horses are standing still to pose for the camera. The hikers in the Hoover Dam photo appear to be three of the four people shown in the 1955 and 1959 Hoover Dam calendar pictures. Rather than paid models, the people in many of these photos are probably members of the photographers’ families. Continue reading

Union Pacific 1954 Desk Calendar

Union Pacific probably starting publishing these little (about 5-2/3″ by 7-1/2″) desk calendars in the late 1940s and continued at least through the mid-1950s. This particular card urges people to “stay in hotels,” possibly because hotels were associated with train travel while motels were associated with auto travel.


Click image to download a 409-KB PDF of this desk calendar.

While this is the only desk calendar in my collection, below is one from 1949 in which the months are arranged around a tiny map of the Union Pacific system. Continue reading

Union Pacific 1953 Calendar

The photo of Mount Hood on the September page of the 1953 calendar was also used on a menu cover as well as on the October 1959 calendar. Otherwise, the photos on this calendar weren’t used, so far as I know, on menus or other calendars.

Click image to download a 22.5-MB PDF of this calendar.

However, the May photo of Tower Bridge in Bryce Canyon was used on the cover of a 1956 Southern Utah parks booklet. I’ve been to the spot where this photo was taken; the Park Service doesn’t allow people, much less horses, to climb the slope to the natural bridge where the riders are posed; perhaps the rules were different in the early 1950s. Continue reading

Union Pacific 1952 Calendar

At least four of the photographs on the 1952 calendar were used on menus, and the October photo of Lake Marie in Wyoming was also repeated in the 1955 calendar. The calendar contains some other clichés: Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam (at least from an unusual viewpoint), Jackson Lake, Old Faithful, and horses above Sun Valley.

Click image to download a 21.9-MB PDF of this calendar.

Some of the more unique photos include an intimate look at Death Valley’s Furnace Creek Inn; a photo of San Francisco’s Chinatown where the newest cars were at least four years old in 1952; Sentinel Peak in Zion Park; Catalina Island; and a floating bridge in Seattle, Washington (which was also used on a menu). The floating bridge photo was obviously taken in the summer, so it is strange that UP used it for a December photo. Continue reading

Union Pacific 1951 Calendar

The 1951 calendar opens with a much more elaborate Willmarth map than the one shown on the 1946 edition. Inside are many interesting pictures, but only one, so far as I know, was used on a menu.

Click image to download a 22.0-MB PDF of this calendar.

The photo of Dream Lake on the May calendar page has the same two young women in it as the June, 1949 calendar photo, which was also in Rocky Mountain Park. The two were probably taken on the same day.

Continue reading

Union Pacific 1950 Calendar

In sharp contrast with the 1949 calendar, which had only one photo that I know was also used on a menu cover, all but three of the photos on the 1950 calendar were shared with menus. Two of the photos had previously been used on the 1945 calendar, while a third would later be repeated on the 1954 calendar.

Click image to download a 27.6-MB PDF of this calendar.

While each individual calendar was a thing of beauty, by 1950 they must have seemed a little repetitive. Almost every year had a photo of Mount Hood, Hoover Dam, Jackson Lake, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, a lake in Rocky Mountain Park, Zion’s Great White Throne, and Sun Valley. Old Faithful and the Mormon Temple also made frequent appearances. Continue reading

Union Pacific 1949 Calendar

Beginning in 1949, Union Pacific calendars grew to 12-3/4″x23″ from the 10″x18″ size used in the 1940 through 1948 calendars. The larger size didn’t result in any additional content, but everything from the photos to the typeface sizes were proportionally expanded.

Click image to download a 21.6-MB PDF of this calendar.

Unfortunately, my copy of the 1949 calendar is missing the page showing the December, 1948 and full 1949 calendars. According to the photo descriptions, these pages showed pictures of San Fernando Mission and crop irrigation in Idaho. Unusually, this calendar shows two Union Pacific train stations: Omaha and Las Vegas. Although the Boise station is on the 1950 calendar, other UP calendars in my collection don’t show stations. Continue reading

Union Pacific 1948 Calendar

I don’t have the 1947 calendar, so here is the 1948 edition. In either 1947 or 1948, Union Pacific graduated from the twelve pages used in the earlier calendars to a full sixteen pages. In addition to the twelve calendar months, one page shows December, 1947; two pages show full 1948 and 1949 calendars; and the final page has slightly longer descriptions of each photo. UP would continue to use this format through 1960.

Click image to download a 21.6-MB PDF of this calendar.

The opening (December 1947) page of this calendar has a completely unromantic photo of the Union Pacific ticket office building in downtown Los Angeles. While it’s true that part of a train trip was standing in line to buy tickets, people didn’t necessarily want to be reminded of that every time they looked at a calendar. The building was replaced in 1967 with a 24-story office building. Continue reading