Unlike most menus, this one unfolds twice instead of just once. While we’ve seen a few like this before, this one is even more unusual in that it is printed on both sides.
Click image to download a 2.1-MB PDF of this menu.
On the outside, the waterfall on the front cover isn’t named, but a previous menu showed a similar picture and called it Dawn Mist Falls near the northeast corner of Glacier Park. Regrettably, the picture on this menu cuts off the bottom half of the falls, but it is nonetheless a striking and colorful image.
When opened up, the left side has a three-paragraph article about rivers that seems to be there just to fill the time while patrons were waiting for their order. The article notes that the menu was used by members of the American Bankers Association on their way to their annual convention in San Francisco. The right side has the menu itself, which notes that it was used on September 24, 1929.
Unfolded again reveals a panel that has a three-paragraph article about the new Empire Builder illustrated by three images of the train’s observation-lounge car. Another panel is devoted to an address space in case people want to mail the menu to friends. A third panel has room for a message to their friends while the fourth panel allows people to enter their itinerary, perhaps in case their friends want to meet them somewhere.
At the bottom of two of the panels is a map of the Great Northern beneath which is a tiny image of a steam locomotive pulling a nine-car train in Pullman green. A close look at the locomotive shows it is a 4-8-4, the latest in the GN roster, and that it is colored a different shade of green from the train. Some GN locomotive shops were known to paint locomotives, especially ones used for passenger service, in what has become known as the Glacier Park color scheme, in which the boiler was green and the cab roof was red. This locomotive doesn’t have a red cab roof but it may be that the shade of green was meant to recall the Glacier Park color.
The article about the Empire Builder noted that the train’s sleeping car berths were “fitted with new type deep coil spring mattresses” and the dining car featured “menus that show a genius for surprise, and service spiced with a smile.” I’m not sure whether it would have been considered surprising in 1929, but among the items on the breakfast menu were sauerkraut juice, codfish cakes, and French toast with wine jelly. The menu is unpriced so meals must have been included in the tour ticket.