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Yellowstone National Park in 1931

Posted on June 23, 2022 by Train LoverJuly 30, 2022

Other than the cover and the godawful yellow paper it is printed on, this brochure is almost identical to the 1928 edition presented here a couple of days ago. The yellow paper is not an improvement, but it might have reduced printing costs a little as the 1928 version was printed in two colors.

Click image to download a 17.5-MB PDF of this brochure.

Like the 1928 brochure, this one is undated but based on the list of passenger agents on the second-to-last panel and the schedule of the Yellowstone Comet on the first panel of page 2, I date it to 1931 or 1932. This booklet is courtesy of NPRHA — Lorenz Schrenk collection.

Eastward Via the Northern Pacific Railway

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Train LoverJune 22, 2022

This booklet has the same purpose as the Eastward booklet presented here a few days ago: to entice easterners who visit California to return via the Northern Pacific, which would add at least a day to their journey. After World War I, the NP didn’t have the Great Northern Pacific steamships to get people from San Francisco to Oregon, so had to promote Southern Pacific’s Shasta and Cascade routes, the latter of which opened in 1926.

Click image to download a 9.7-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet.

However, the booklet also mentions the Pacific Steamship company’s “splendid ship,” which could have referred to the former Great Northern, as it (under the name H.F. Alexander) often operated between San Francisco and Seattle. However, it more likely referred to other ships owned by the same company that operated on the Great Northern‘s former route between San Francisco and Astoria. Continue reading →

Yellowstone Park in 1928

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

The 68-page Magic Yellowstone booklets presented here yesterday included an essay by conservationist and novelist Emerson Hough (1857-1923). That same essay is included on three panels of this eighteen-panel brochure. The brochure also has lots of black-and-white photos, a brief description of Burlington tours, and a three-panel essay on why “the Way to See Yellowstone” is by going in the Gardiner entrance and out the Cody Road.

Click image to download a 17.5-MB PDF of this brochure.

The cover photo is a detail of a photo of a bear by Frank Jay Haynes that we’ve seen many times before, including on a Northern Pacific postcard as well as on the cover of booklet presented here a few days ago. A more complete version of the photo is found inside the brochure, which says it is a grizzly bear, though it looks like a black bear to me. What the brochure doesn’t say (but is apparent from the postcard) is that the photo was taken at a hotel dump site, which attracted the bears and provided photo opportunities for tourists. Continue reading →

Companion of Mountains Stationery

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

Here’s another piece of on-board stationery I found at the Minnesota History Center. Instead of a color lithograph of Lower Yellowstone Falls, page 3 has a black-and-white photo of Mt. St. Helens, adding that “The wild grandeur of the Rockies and Cascades accompanies the North Coast Limited for a thousand miles.”

Click image to download a 161-KB PDF of this on-board stationery.

This one is harder to date as the back cover is blank and so provides no additional clues. However, the image on the front probably represents the Northern Pacific’s first 4-8-4 locomotives, which were purchased in 1926. If it was from 1934 or later, the words “air conditioned” would have been included somewhere on the stationery. That puts it somewhere between 1926 and 1933. I noted that yesterday’s must have been from 1927 or before, and my guess is it came before this one. Continue reading →

On the North Coast Limited

Posted on June 19, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

Here’s a beautiful piece of on-board stationery that I photographed at the Minnesota History Center. While the front cover, shown below, looks plain, it unfolds to reveal a brightly colored lithograph of Lower Yellowstone Falls and canyon. This is a bit of a surprise as NP rarely used colored pictures in its advertising.

Click image to download a 290-KB PDF of this on-board stationery.

The back cover advertises that “There is a friendly spirit on this train” and “a journey on the North Coast Limited is something to be anticipated happily.” The back cover also lists A.B. Smith as the passenger traffic manager. He held this position until 1927, so this stationery is from that year or earlier.

Magic Yellowstone in 1927

Posted on June 18, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

We’ve previously seen the 1928 edition of this booklet. The cover, photographs, and text in this 1927 version are almost identical. The biggest differences are that the 1927 edition uses larger headlines and, in some places, different fonts. I don’t know why NP marketing staff would use smaller headlines in 1928, as they are less eye-catching.

Click image to download a 20.9-MB PDF of this 68-page booklet.

This booklet is courtesy of NPRHA — Lorenz Schrenk collection. The Schrenk collection also included a 1928 version, which I am including below as it was in better condition than the one I previously posted. Continue reading →

Yellowstone Park Lodges and Camps in 1926

Posted on June 17, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

This colorful booklet has Northern Pacific’s logo on the cover (which is actually the back cover), but was issued by the Yellowstone Park Camps Company. A map on panels 7 and 8 gives equal attention to Northern Pacific’s Gardiner Entrance, Union Pacific’s West Yellowstone entrance, Burlington’s Cody entrance, and even Chicago & North Western’s Lander gateway (which was 189 miles from the park), so it is possible that some of those other railroads, along with the Milwaukee, distributed similar booklets with their own logos on the cover.

Click image to download a 6.4-MB PDF of this 12-page booklet.

We’ve previously seen an edition of this booklet dated 1925. This one, which is courtesy of the NPRHA — Lorenz Schrenk collection, is for 1926. Continue reading →

Northern Pacific Yellowstone Falls Postcard

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

This postcard came with the Great Northern See America First cards shown in the previous three days. However, it isn’t from Great Northern and it isn’t really a postcard. For one thing, the size is a little smaller than a standard postcard: 5-1/6″ wide instead of the usual 5-1/2″.

Click image to download a 252-KB PDF of this postcard.

More important, it is pre-addressed to a Northern Pacific passenger agent in Philadelphia. It was probably mailed to people with a cover letter inviting them to return the postcard, with their address, if they wanted more information about Northern Pacific trains or vacation destinations. I have images of Great Northern cards like this from the Minnesota History Center that I hope to post someday.

Pacific Coast Attractions

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

Yesterday’s booklet, Eastward Through the Storied Northwest, mentioned that Northern Pacific also had a folder describing the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915. This is that booklet, which is also from the Schrenk collection and made available to us courtesy of the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association.

Click image to download a 14.3-MB PDF of this 32-page booklet.

As I’ve noted before, there were actually two expositions celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal, the Panama Pacific in San Francisco and the Panama California in San Diego. Both are featured on the above cover (which is actually the back cover). But, like yesterday’s booklet, this one seems to assume that its audience has already decided to attend one or both expos and is written to encourage people to visit other parts of the Pacific Coast, preferably ones served by Northern Pacific trains or Great Northern Pacific steamships. I’m not sure where GNP steamships docked in San Francisco, but it couldn’t have been far from the expo grounds. Continue reading →

Eastward Through the Storied Northwest 1915

Posted on June 14, 2022 by Train LoverJune 7, 2022

Most booklets from western railroads are aimed at easterners touring the West. A few are aimed at westerners touring the East. This one is aimed at enticing easterners who have found themselves in California, perhaps for one of the 1915 Panama expositions, to take their return trip via the “Storied Northwest.” The booklet mentions that “Our Panama-Pacific Exposition folder deals at length with this World’s Exposition and will be sent free upon request by writing to the nearest Northern Pacific representative.”

Click image to download a 17.0-MB PDF of this 40-page booklet.

Pages 2 through 13 of the booklet are all about getting from California to the Northwest, either via the Southern Pacific’s Shasta Route or then-new “Palaces of the Pacific” of the Great Northern Pacific Steamship Company (which was technically a subsidiary of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway). Those 524-feet-long ships, named Great Northern and Northern Pacific, were, the booklet assured readers, “the most magnificent and luxuriously furnished of any steamship ever built in an American shipyard.” Continue reading →