If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 187

Tillamook Bay, Oregon, 1933

Tillamook Bay is located on the Oregon Coast Highway about 75 miles west of Portland, Oregon.  The postcard was published by Wesley Andrews, Inc. of Portland, Oregon and was sent to Petra Lee in 1933 by her friend Hilda who was taking a trip. Note the "W A" logo in the center on the reverse of the card.  Bell Studio is credited with the photograph that shows a sunset view of the bay.  The card looks a little like a linen card but it does not feel like one or have the fabric grain that linen cards do.  It has the number 959 at the upper left and is still a penny postcard as indicated by the one cent Franklin profile stamp.

Charles Wesley Andrews was born in 1875, in Aurora, Ontario, Canada.  He established his first photo/postcard studio in 1904 at Baker, Oregon.  He is best known for his pictures of the Oregon Coast.  In 1905 there was a World’s Fair in Portland honoring the Lewis & Clark Exposition for which over 450 different postcard designs were published.  This was near the height of postcard popularity and Andrews was one of several card publishers in the area.  For a while he also published the Morning Democrat.  In the 1920s he moved his studio from Baker to Portland where he died in 1950.  He had sold the postcard business to Herb Goldsmith sometime before his death. 

Here in the Pacific Northwest Tillamook is best known for Tillamook Cheese, a natural aged cheddar that has routinely won awards from the American Cheese Society.  It is possible to visit the factory and take tours that also allow for some tasting of the various cheeses made there.  The company has produced a video explaining the process and a link is provided below for any who want to check it out.

Tillamook Bay is protected from the open ocean by shoals and a sandbar (Bayocean Peninsula) and is also surrounded by the Coastal Range except where the town of Tillamook is situated at the southeast end near the mouths of four rivers (Kilchis, Wilson, Trask, and Tillamook).  The name in Salish means “Land of Many Waters” probably referring to the rivers that enter the bay. 

It is believed that native people arrived in the area around the year 1400.  When Lewis and Clark arrived in the early 1800s they estimated the native Salish tribes population at about 2,200.  Captain Robert Gray was the first known American to arrive at Tillamook.  He explored the surrounding areas in 1788 at first thinking he had landed at the Columbia River.  Following a hostile encounter with the local population that resulted in the deaths of a crew member and several natives, Gray left after only one week.  About 60 years later in 1848 Elbridge Trask began a settlement here.  His journey overland and the trials of early settlement are chronicled in the historical fiction by Don Berry known as the “Trask novels” series. 

For additional information, see:

http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/post_card_history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillamook_County_Creamery_Association
video cheese factor tour:
http://www.tillamook.com/cheese-factory/factory-tour.html