Why Is a Musketeer on This Booklet Cover?

Posted on by October 15, 2023
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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. Continue reading →

Milwaukee Road On-Board Stationery

Posted on by October 15, 2023
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Here is some distinctive stationery used by a passenger who rode the Olympian Hiawatha in 1949. While the stationery itself is quite beautiful, the letter written on it makes clear that the writer was not, at the time, a passenger on the train.

Click image to download a 2.5-MB PDF of this letter.

The envelope was postmarked August 26, 1949 in Greenough, Montana (about 30 miles northeast of Missoula) and addressed to a Miss Martha Blankarn of Rumson, New Jersey. The letter itself (which must be read on page 1, then 4, then 2) tells a sad tale of a young woman who had been exiled by her family in the wilds of Montana to keep her away from a boyfriend who they “are not overwhelmingly thrilled with” in the hope that she would forget about him. As a result of being “stuck in the West,” she was unable to attend her friend Martha’s engagement party on September 3. Continue reading →

The Olympian

Posted on by October 15, 2023
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A few months ago I presented a 1912 booklet about the Olympian. This booklet is similar but, based on the list of agents in the back, I date it to 1913. It is worth noting that, in November, 1915, the railroad operated its first electrically powered locomotives between Three Forks and Deer Lodge, Montana, and since this booklet doesn’t mention that momentous event, it is clearly from before that date.


Click image to download a 27.2-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet.

Like the 1912 booklet, today’s booklet illustrates the trains with several photographs, the first one of which shows the dining car of the Olympian. There are no people in this or any of the other interior photos, while the 1912 booklet shows dining car staff and the 1911 booklet presented here yesterday shows both staff and passengers. The presence of the passengers makes it seem much more inviting so I have to wonder why the photo in today’s booklet is so sterile by comparison. Continue reading →

The New Steel Trail

Posted on by November 9, 2023
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The brilliant cover of this booklet was designed to remind travelers that only the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul offered all-steel trains between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest in 1911. At that time, the steel industry, though more than 50 years old, was a hot commodity. The ten-year-old U.S. Steel Corporation was the largest company in the world and controlled two-thirds of the American steel market, leading to the same debates over monopolies that we hear today about Google and other high-tech companies.

Click image to download a 10.6-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet. Click here to download a PDF of the front and back cover as shown above.

Steel, an alloy of iron and carbon, wasn’t as fast moving as the high-tech industry is today, but it was still transforming America in the early twentieth century. The first large-scale steelmaking, using the Bessemer process, could be traced back to the 1850s. The first railroad to experiment with steel rails was in England in 1857. Yet as late as 1880, more than 70 percent of American rails were still made of iron. By 1900, however, more than 90 percent were steel. Continue reading →

Burlington Route November 1959 Timetable

Posted on by October 15, 2023
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This timetable is quite a contrast from the one from 1939 shown here a few days ago. While that one had five full-page ads and two half-page ads, this one has no ads larger than a few tiny spots leftover after placing all the schedules. The 1939 ads promoted trains, tours, and destinations. The tiny ads in this one are limited to saying things like “Ship • Travel Burlington.”

Click image to download a 18.8-MB PDF of this 32-page timetable.

There are still plenty of trains in this timetable including eleven different zephyrs (counting the morning and afternoon Twin Zephyrs separately). But instead of advertising those trains, the inside front cover has general information and the inside and outside back covers list Burlington agents. Continue reading →

When the Frost Is on the Punkin

Posted on by October 15, 2023
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The back of this menu reproduces James Whitcomb Riley‘s poem, When the Frost Is on the Punkin, in full. Riley (1849-1916), of course, was the Hoosier poet who wrote in a central Indiana dialect. In 1941, the New York Central named a Chicago-Indianapolis train after him.

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

The cover painting, which fits the poem well, was by Charles (Charlie) Dye (1906-1963), who later became famous as a cowboy painter in the style of Charles Russell. Born in Colorado, Dye spent his early years working on ranches in several western states while he drew pictures of cowboys and the land around them. In 1927, he decided to become an artist and went to Chicago to study at the Art Institute. Continue reading →

Burlington January 1944 Timetable

Posted on by October 15, 2023
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Yesterday’s 1939 timetable had a four-page insert of large ads, plus full-page ads on the inside and outside back covers. We’ve previously seen a 1940 timetable with the same arrangement. Yet today’s 1944 timetable has no large ads, and even the small ones are few in number.

Click image to download a 22.2-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

This might be due to wartime paper shortages. Other railroads continued to dedicate full pages of their timetables to ads, but Burlington might have responded to higher paper costs or restrictions a little differently. I suspect, however, that Burlington decided independently of the war, to change its marketing strategy and to rely more on magazine and other advertising than on advertising in its timetables. Continue reading →

Burlington Route June 1939 Timetable

Posted on by October 15, 2023
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The Burlington was quite the hopping railroad in 1939. The back cover of this timetable advertises the “fast, new” Exposition Flyer, which was operated “on a schedule planned to give a panorama of western scenery by daylight.” Inside the covers are four pages of ads that, for some reason, aren’t included in the timetable’s page numbering system.

Click image to download a 27.4-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

The “new General Pershing Zephyr” is promoted on the third page of the timetable. It went from St. Louis to Kansas City to Lincoln, where it connected with the Exposition Flyer. The fourth page of the timetable advises that passengers on the Denver Zephyr saved “2 extra days of vacation time” by taking the fast train. Instead of an ad, the inside front cover was wasted on a list of Burlington agents. Continue reading →

Grand Coulee Dam Lunch Menu

Posted on by October 18, 2023
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For some reason, several railroads — including Burlington, Rio Grande, and of course NP — issued menus in the late 1930s and 1940s that required someone to glue photos on the covers. The glued-on photo on this menu shows Grand Coulee Dam, one of the largest dams in the world and a great source of national pride when it was built.

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

The dam was built in two stages. First, a low (290-foot-tall) dam was built for generating hydroelectricity. This was completed in 1938. Second, a high (550-feet-tall) dam was built on top of the old one, creating enough power and storing enough water for irrigation. This was completed in 1942. Continue reading →

The Call of the Open Range

Posted on by September 17, 2023
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Unlike many booklets about dude ranches presented here, this one doesn’t provide detailed descriptions of the various ranches. Instead, one page lists well over 100 dude ranches, fishing camps, and mountain lodges with their nearest train stations, post offices, and rates. A map of Montana and northern Wyoming pins down the locations of all of these resorts and ranches.

Click image to download an 17.0-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

Most of the rest of the booklet is photographs of what life was like on the ranches or, on one page, what life was like on the North Coast Limited on the way to the ranches. Only about three pages are text. A printer’s mark on page 15 says “form 6516–41” which dates it to 1941. Continue reading →