As shown on the Great Northern menu PDF page, GN had a wide profusion of menus in the 1920s. In the early 1930s, perhaps due to the Depression, the railroad used rather plain menus, with little cover decoration. I won’t be showing these here.
From the late 1930s through the late 1950s or a little longer, GN had several beautiful series of menus. But then in the early 1950s, it began using only one menu cover for the Empire Builder and one for each of the “Baby streamliner” day trains (International and Red River). Only Western Star passengers saw any variety, and even that disappeared by 1962.
Most of the menus I have seen from the 1920s were ones I found in the files of the Minnesota History Center. Many of them are menus used for special tour groups, so I don’t know if they are representative of the menus that regular passengers would see. It appears that GN routinely prepared a unique menu cover for many groups. However, many of them can still be classified as part of a series and I am sure I am missing many in each of these series from the 1920s.
If you know of any menus or entire menu series that aren’t included below, please let me know. If you have such a menu or menus and a scanner, please send me scans. Thanks.
Filigree Series
The Filigree series has color photos or paintings that are about 6″x8″ contained within a busy border with even busier filigree at the bottom, along with the GN logo and a small nameplate identifying the photo. The border and filigree may vary from menu to menu, but the approximate photo and menu dimensions do not. I am sure I am missing many examples from this series.
 1923 Menu |  1924 Menu |  1924 Menu |
 1925 Menu |  1925 Menu |
Filigree 2 Series
The Filigree 2 series is a lot like the Filigree series but the central image is much smaller, leaving room for the name of the tour group. There is no GN logo or text identifying the image.
 1924 Menu |  1924 Menu |
Art Nouveau Series
I’m not sure if this is really art nouveau; I was tempted to call this the Psychedelic series due to all of the wild colors, but psychedelic wasn’t a word when these menus were issued in the 1920s. Like the Filigree series, this one has a central image surrounded by a busy border representing trees or flowers along with a GN logo and name plate at the bottom. Notice that the border graphics were sometimes repeated but in different colors.
 1925 Menu |  1926 Menu |  1926 Menu |
 1926 Menu |  1926 Menu |  1926 Menu |
 1927 Menu |  1928 Menu |  1928 Menu |
 1928 Menu |  1929 Menu |
Winold Reiss Series
In 1927, Winold Reiss painted at least four full-sized paintings of standing Blackfeet in full regalia. The original paintings were three feet wide and six feet eight inches tall. As far as I know, all were purchased by Louis Hill, but since have been dispersed into other collections.
GN used these paintings on menus in the late 1930s and 1940s. There are slight color variations in the left-hand part of the menu. After the streamlined Empire Builder entered service in 1947, the old Empire Builder was turned into the Oriental Limited, and the Reiss menus followed. I’m including one here just to show the variation, though it should be noted that some Oriental Limited menus had the train name in blue letters on a white backgrounds, the same as the Empire Builder versions.
 1940 Menu |  1940 Menu |  1940 Menu |
 1940 Menu |  1947 Menu |
Photo Series
Inspired by the introduction of Kodachrome, in 1940 GN introduced these photo menus, mostly showing scenes in Glacier National Park, though there is also one of Grand Coulee Dam and one of Mount Rainier. I’m not sure, but I suspect these were used as dinner menus while the Reiss menus may have been kept for breakfast and lunch menus.
After the introduction of the streamlined Empire Builder, these menus also followed onto the Oriental Limited. I have ten in my collection but there could easily be more.
 1941 Menu |  1941 Menu |  1941 Menu |
 1941 Menu |  1943 Menu |  1946 Menu |
 1946 Menu |  1946 Menu |  1949 Menu |
 1950 Menu |
Tour Group Series
Color photos were apparently too good for tour groups, so GN issued a series of black-and-white photo menus to use for such groups. Notice that the Grand Coulee photo is the same photo, though differently cropped, as the one used on the color photo series.
 1949 Menu |  1949 Menu |  1951 Menu |
 Missing |
Charles Russell Series
The introduction of the streamlined Empire Builder led GN to introduce these five menus featuring Charles Russell paintings. Unlike the Reiss menus, I don’t believe either Hill or GN ever actually owned the paintings shown on these menus. GN just wanted to benefit from the popular artist who lived in Great Falls, Montana.
These menus came in three series, and I’ve included representatives of each: the Empire Builder series, a Western Star series with the train name in white letters, and a Western Star series with the train name in black letters. When Great Northern completely reequipped the Empire Builder in 1951, the old equipment and the menus that went with it were bequeathed to the newly named Western Star.
The observations cars on the 1947 Empire Builder each had a large reproduction of a Charles Russell painting in the lounge. Five trainsets were required for Empire Builder service and so five different paintings were in the five lounge cars. The menus say that the images on the cover matched the images in that train’s lounge car, so GN apparently went to some trouble to insure that the menus used in each diner (which was several cars away from the lounge) matched the paintings in the lounge.
The Western Star went on a longer route than the Empire Builder and so a sixth train set was required. As far as I can tell, GN just used one of the paintings from one of the other observations cars in the new car. The statement that the menu cover images match the lounge car paintings was dropped from the menu.
 1949 Menu |  1949 Menu |  1950 Menu |
 1954 Menu |  1956 Menu |
Baby Streamliner Series
After ordering streamlined equipment for its overnight routes, GN also purchased streamlined equipment for some of its day trains, including the Seattle-Vancouver International and St. Paul-Grand Forks Red River. Eventually, other trains were streamlined as well, but these were the only ones purchased as complete streamliners and the only ones with full diners.
 1950 Menu |  1954 Menu |
Western Star Series
This is only a series because GN printed a slightly altered edition in 1967 and 1968 commemorating the adoption of Big Sky Blue as the railroad’s primary color. By 1970, it went back to using the green color, reminiscent of the Glacier Green used on some GN freight cars, of the pre-1967 menus.
 1966 Menu |  1968 Menu |