Northern Pacific September 1951 Timetable

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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As the cover notes, the North Coast Limited was streamlined, but unlike almost every other streamliner ever introduced, that didn’t save passengers time. Northern Pacific continued to operate it on its pre-streamlined schedule, which meant that it took 58-1/2 hours to get from Chicago to Seattle. The Empire Builder was on a 45-hour schedule.

Click image to download a 25.3-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

Unlike Great Northern’s secondary train, the Western Star, Northern Pacific’s secondary train, the Alaskan, only went as far east as St. Paul. Both coach and Pullman passengers who wanted to continue towards Chicago had to change trains. Continue reading →

Main Street of the Northwest Blotter

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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Streamliner Memories reader Sam Simons sent images of this Northern Pacific blotter advertising the company as the “Main Street of the Northwest.” Great Northern might have had fewer mountains to cross, but Northern Pacific’s main lines served most of Montana’s biggest cities: Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Helena, and Missoula.

Click image to download a 623-KB PDF of this blotter.

The only passenger content on this blotter is the slogan, “Route of the Streamlined North Coast Limited.” The railway first streamlined its premiere train in 1948 and continued to call it that until late 1952, when it speeded up the train and its advertising began referring to it as the “faster North Coast Limited.” (That’s also when it replaced its secondary train, the heavyweight Alaskan, with the streamlined Mainstreeter.) So the blotter must have been issued between 1948 and early 1952.

Lower Geyser Basin Menu

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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The Lower Geyser Basin, for those who haven’t been to Yellowstone recently, is 16 miles north of Old Faithful, which is in the Upper Geyser Basin. Fountain Paint Pot and the Great Fountain Geyser are two of the sights in the Lower Basin.

Click image to download a 787-KB PDF of this menu.

The back of this card, scans for which were contributed by Streamliner Memories reader Douglas Swanson, has the same a la carte menu as yesterday’s and, for that matter, most of the cards in this series. Being printed sometime in the 1920s, I date them to 1925 plus or minus a few years.

Old Faithful Inn Menu

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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If Old Faithful is the star of Yellowstone National Park, Old Faithful Inn is the star of the park’s infrastructure. Built with funds from the Northern Pacific in 1905, the inn remains an important landmark today. So it is nice to see it on the front of this “real photo” Northern Pacific menu, whose scans were contributed by Streamliner Memories reader Douglas Swanson.

Click image to download a 931-KB PDF of this menu.

Like other menus in this series, this one is undated, but it lists “L.K. Owen” as the superintendent of dining cars. He ascended to that position in 1921, so the menu is from sometime in the 1920s. Continue reading →

Northern Pacific Poster Stamps Series #5

Posted on by April 27, 2024
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Here are more Northern Pacific poster stamps, labeled series 5. If series 1 and 2 were issued in 1915 and series 3 and 4 in 1916, then this series may have been issued in 1917. I’ve found a series 6 and a series 7 but no series higher than that and I doubt NP issued any poster stamps after the Great War.

Click image to download a 1.9-MB PDF of all ten stamps on this sheet. Click here to download a high-resolution JPG of these stamps.

This set of stamps shows scenes along the St. Croix River, which forms part of the boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Stamp number 5, as shown above, is the 1902 Northern Pacific train station in Taylor’s Falls (now Taylors Falls), MN, which is across the river from St. Croix, WI. The station still exists as a community center, though it is not so rustic looking and the shelter shown on the stamp at the near end of the station has been torn down. Continue reading →

Northern Pacific Poster Stamps Series 3

Posted on by April 4, 2024
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In the early 1900s, perhaps coinciding with the postcard craze, Cinderella stamps, which looked like postage stamps but couldn’t be used as postage, became popular, with people using them to decorate letters, envelopes, and postcards mailed to friends and relatives. Cinderella stamps issued by companies to advertise their products were called poster stamps because they supposedly looked like miniature posters. Northern Pacific was among several railroads that issued such stamps, either for their marketing employees to use or for any members of the public who wanted to advertise NP destinations.

Click image to download a 4.2-MB PDF of all ten stamps on this sheet. Click here to download a high-resolution JPG of these stamps.

The stamps were issued in several series with ten stamps in each series. Northern Pacific’s series 1 and 2 both showed scenes from Yellowstone Park, but each stamp also had a banner reading, “Visit California Expositions via Northern Pacific and Yellowstone Park.” This would have referred to San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific Exposition and San Diego’s Panama-California Exposition, which were held in 1915. That dates the stamps to that year. Continue reading →

Wisconsin Dells Menu

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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The Wisconsin Dells was in Milwaukee Road territory, not Santa Fe. But that didn’t stop Fred Harvey from taking over several resort facilities in 1954. These included the Hotel Crandall in the city of Wisconsin Dells, the Dells Boat Company, and a trading post at Dells Park Indian Village.

Click image to download a 592-KB PDF of this menu.

These operations were originally owned by George Crandall, who moved from New York to Kilbourn (the original name of the city of Wisconsin Dells) in 1892. There he met Henry Hamilton Bennett, an innovative photographer whose work first popularized the Wisconsin Dells and one of whose descendants took the photo on the cover of this menu. Crandall also met Bennett’s daughter, Nellie, who he married. Continue reading →

Westport Room Menu

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been presenting these Fred Harvey menus in alphabetical order of the restaurant names, not in the order in which the facilities opened or how far they were from the Santa Fe Railway. With this menu we return to Fred Harvey’s roots of a station restaurant.

Click image to download a 546-KB PDF of this menu.

Kansas City Union Station opened in 1914 and, since Santa Fe was one of its major tenants, Fred Harvey naturally had a restaurant there. In 1936, the restaurant was remodeled into the Westport Room (named after Westport Landing, the starting point for westbound travelers from Kansas City before the coming of the railroad). Continue reading →

Petrified Forest Menu

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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The Painted Desert Inn, located in the Petrified Forest National Monument (now a national park), is another example of Fred Harvey moving away from its roots serving rail travelers and towards serving auto travelers. The inn was located close to Highway 66 and is now about 3.5 miles from an exit on Interstate 40. The entire park is gorgeous but the inn itself is particularly fascinating.

Click image to download a 578-KB PDF of this menu.

The inn was built on the site of a previous stop known as Stone Tree House. In 1936, the owner sold it to the Park Service whose architect, Lyle Bennett, designed a Pueblo Revival style building to replace it. The Inn included a snack bar and some cabins for lodging. Continue reading →

Old Spinning Wheel Menu

Posted on by April 1, 2024
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In an effort to keep its restaurant mix current with the times, Fred Harvey began operating the Old Spinning Wheel, a popular restaurant in Hinsdale, a suburb of Chicago, in 1954. The photo on the cover of this menu doesn’t show it, but the 500-seat restaurant featured a rustic design filled with antiques including, as the name suggests, an old spinning wheel.

Click image to download a 540-KB PDF of this menu.

The restaurant had been started in 1935 by Charles and Vacia Duncan, who opened a larger version on 20 acres of gardens in 1942. The years 1935 and 1942 don’t sound like auspicious times to open or expand a restaurant, but their formula was so successful that by 1952 it was considered one of the 50 most popular restaurants in the U.S. When the Duncan’s retired in 1954, they leased it to Fred Harvey, who used menus like this one to make people outside of the western Chicago suburbs aware of the location. Continue reading →