If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 665

 

 

 

 

 

Historic London

 

“The friendship post card” is printed at the right on the reverse of this used souvenir postcard from London, England.  Like the Danish postcard that was shared a couple of weeks ago, this one has 5 different views of popular tourist destinations, this time featuring historic London.  This is a Golden Shield card with the number 142 at the top of the center line on the reverse.  It is one of the cards Marge Engler kept and was sent to her by her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren who were traveling abroad.

 

Beginning with the large picture of the Tower of London complex at the upper left and going clockwise around.  The second photo is of the guard wearing the tall bearskin hats and standing in front of the entrance.  The famous clock tower, Big Ben, is next, then a Yeoman Warder or Beefeater, is seen talking with children, the last picture is of Saint Paul’s cathedral.

 

The Tower of London is located on the north bank of the River Thames in central London.  It is officially His Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London.  Founded toward the end of 1066 as a result of the Norman Conquest.  William the Conqueror built the White Tower in 1078 and is the symbol that gives the entire complex its name.  The complex has several buildings and two rings of defensive walls plus a moat.  Historically significant the complex it was besieged several times.  It has served different purposes at different times, from being an armory, a treasury, a menagerie, a prison, home to the Royal Mint, a public record office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of England.  It is a popular tourist attraction and is also protected as a World Heritage Site. 

 

The King’s Guard is one of the Household Division’s five regiments of foot guards.  The Household Guard duties include the sentry postings at Buckingham Palace and St. James’s Palace in London.  They are recognizable symbols by their red coats and tall bearskin hats.  They participate in the ceremony called the changing of the guard which is held Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at Buckingham Palace Forecourt and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at Windsor Castle.  The ceremony starts at 10:45 am and lasts for about 45 minutes. 

 

 

“Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster.”  It stands at the west end of the Palace of Westminster and was once known as the Clock Tower.  When Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 the it was renamed Elizabeth Tower.  The clock has five striking bells.  Designed by Augustus Pugin it was completed in 1859.  It is one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom.

 

The ceremonial guards of the Tower of London are popularly known as Beefeaters but are officially named Yeoman Warders.  They serve as the palace guard and are responsible for safeguarding the British crown jewels as well as looking after any prisoners in the Tower.  They also conduct some guided tours of the Tower.

 

St. Paul’s Cathedral is another of the most recognizable symbols of London and a popular tourist destination.  TheEnglish Baroque style building was designed by Sir Christopher Wren.  The dome has been part of the skyline of London for over 300 years.   

 

 

For additional information, see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London

https://www.householddivision.org.uk/changing-the-guard-overview

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Guard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeoman_Warders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Paul%27s_Cathedral

 

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 661

 

 

 

 

 

Bornholm, Denmark, 1982

 

Published by Colberg Boghandel a/s Rønne, Denmark this week’s used postcard is an Eneret card #1640 and features a cute illustration from the island of Bornholm showing fishermen, herring, and smokehouses.  At the lower right is “Hvor silden går I brede stimer ligger øen med de fleste solskinstimer” that roughly translates to:  Where the herring nets are found in wide shoals lies the island with the most hours of sunshine.”  The card would probably be termed a novelty card because of the cartoon-like picture.

 

Unlike most of the rest of Denmark, which is somewhat flat with low rolling hills, Borholm is a rocky island rising high out of the sea.  The northern part of the island is very rocky while the southern tip has a beach with some of the most fine grained sand found anywhere.  The middle of the island is farmland.  In addition to its round churches, the island is also famous for its herring fishing and smokehouses.  Two smokehouses can be seen at the upper left on the card.  Herring drying are found at the right edge, and the rest of the picture shows the process of fishing, cleaning, preparing the herring, and smoking the fish.  Drying racks can be seen just in back of the two women taking fish out of a basket.  The catch of the day is found on the docks and by the building in the center of the card.  There is even a whimsical black cat who has just finished eating a herring.  The artist’s signature is found along the right side “Bjerno.”

 

Because of its weather and the geology of the island it is known as the “sunshine island.”  The heat from the summer is stored in the rock formations and the weather stays warm until October.  The southern sandy beaches are popular vacation swimming and camping areas.

 

I was surprised and delighted to find that my mother had kept this card we mailed to her while on a trip to Scandinavia in 1982.  My youngest son was 4 years old and quite taken with the picture on the card.  He wanted to send it to his grandma and so he did with some help.  The main reason for visiting Bornholm on that trip was to see where my paternal grandfather, Axel Schrøder, was born and lived as a boy.  Although we were not able to find his exact home, we found the town, got an idea of where the farm was located and what it was like where he grew up. 

 

 Danish stamp, issued 1981

 

The stamp, issued in 1981, has a picture of N.F.S. Gundtvig’s childhood home.  Gundtvig (1783-1872) was a Danish Lutheran pastor, author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher and politician who was one of the most influential people in Danish history.  He and his followers are credited with influencing modern Danish national consciousness.  He was a contemporary of Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard; however, his writings are not as well known internationally.

 

For additional information, see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornholm

https://visitbornholm.com/en/cities-places/selected-places/smokehouses

https://en.wikipedia.org/N._F._S._Gundtvig

 

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 453

Chautauqua Hotel, 1903, New York

The other day I was looking for something in my grandmother’s (Lil Anna’s) old photo album and unexpectedly came across this postcard of the Chautauqua Hotel (New York State) identified and dated on the photo at the lower left and middle.  The card is pasted in the album and as it resisted removal and I did not want to damage it, the reverse side remains somewhat a mystery.  Since this was during the period when postcards had undivided backs and therefore only the name and address could be on one side any message would have appeared across the photo.

When Anna left Norway in 1902 she traveled with a ticket paid for by a sponsor family living in Buffalo, New York, which is not too far away from Lake Chautauqua.  Their name and address was printed on a card and pinned to her coat while she waited at Ellis Island to go through immigration.  She described feeling like a parcel post package waiting to be delivered.  This was a fairly common way for young people to be able to travel to American.  Boys would end up usually doing farm work and girls did mostly housework or tended children.  In 1907 when Anna returned to Norway on a visit she began encouraging friends and relatives to come to America.  She became a sponsor and paid for the tickets, when the ticket was paid off she turned it around and sent for the next person.  Axel and Anna even had a small house on their Lake Union property where the newly arrived immigrant could live until he or she got a job and could be on their own. 

While in Buffalo, Anna worked for the sponsor family for 2 years to pay off the passage fare and save some money so she could go to a young ladies finishing school in New York.  Unfortunately, she did not include the name of the family in her journal.  Later she worked in the garment industry sewing clothing before going to Boston, Massachusetts to live with her brother, John, and his wife, Lydia for a short period of time and eventually traveling by rail across the country to Seattle in time to visit the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo in 1909.  She married Axel Schroder in Seattle in 1912.

Anna Hornnes Schroder, 1912

Lake Chautauqua is about 17 miles or 27 km long and 2 miles or 3.2 km wide with a maximum depth of 78 ft or 24 m.  Buffalo is on Lake Erie and Chautauqua is not far from Lake Erie.  The name of the county and the lake come from the language of the Erie people who lived in this area.  The Erie language is now extinct.  The lake is used for boating, fishing and tourism.  There are many shops, restaurants and entertainment.  There is also a stern-wheeler replica, the Chautuaqua Belle, that offers sight-seeing cruises on the lake. 

Since it is a souvenir card, and more than likely purchased while on a vacation, it seems likely that sometime during the 2 years Anna worked for the family in Buffalo they took a trip to the lake and that is how the card came to be pasted in her photo album.

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua_Lake

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 447

Old horse drawn wagons in the collection of Lambert Florin, Portland, Oregon

Byron Larson of Portland, Oregon is the photographer and the publisher of the deckle edged postcard shared this week.   The card was distributed by Princess Continental and has the number 131360 and a logo in the place where the stamp is to be affixed on the reverse.  Deckle edges were popular from the 1930s to the 1950s with some showing up even into the 1960s.   There is an informational blurb at the lower left corner on the reverse explaining that these horse drawn vehicles were part of the atmosphere of the Old West.  They are part of Lambert William Florin’s collection of items from the early American West.

Beginning at the left side of the card is a successor of the buckboard and is called a spring wagon.  The spring wagon has four wheels and was drawn by draft animals, usually horses.  It had a square box and two to four movable seat boards.  The seat in the photo looks like a luxury model.  It was called a spring wagon because it had a spring-loaded gate and the box body was hung on platform springs, front, rear, or both.  It was used as a delivery van.

The next vehicle is a sulky.  It had two wheels, was a lightweight cart, and had a seat for the driver.  It could be pulled by horses or dogs and was used in harness races.  Another form of the sulky was used as a form of rural transportation. 

The third wagon, blue and white, in the photo is a regulation horse drawn mail wagon first introduced in the 1870s.  These wagons were often embellished with painted eagles, decorative trim and red, white and blue stripes.  Before automobiles these mail wagons were used for local mail deliveries.

The fourth wagon on the card is the familiar covered wagon or Conestoga used by “overlanders” migrating westward.  They could be pulled by horses, mules or oxen.
  

This old Schroder family photo, above, taken about 1914, shows a couple, with the woman holding a baby, riding in a wagon similar to what many people of that era would have used. Not a buckboard or spring board but slightly fancier.  Written in the album margin was "the old hosh [horse] shay," like the poem about the one horse shay; although, this one has two horses.  The seat bench looks like it is made of wicker.  "How do you suppose women in those long dresses got up into the wagon?"  I asked Bob, thinking there might be a stool or folding step.  He suggested that they either had to "claw" their way up or get help from a man.  

The collector, Lambert William Florin, was born in Oregon in 1905.  When he was a teenager he worked at a number of odd jobs, as a cook, a fisherman, a busboy, and also working on a gladiola farm.  In 1923 he moved to San Diego, California where he worked in the florist business for the next 18 years.  Alcoholism caused the collapse of his marriage, loss of his job, and ill health brought a return to Portland, Oregon where he was active in Alcoholics Anonymous for many years.

Florin worked for the U.S. Forest Service as fire lookout.  He was also a substitute firefighter for the Portland Fire Bureau.  He climbed nearly ever peak in the West at least once.  He also worked for several local florists.  He became interested in ghost towns and photography.  He wrote and illustrated 14 Western Ghost Town books in a series.  He was a collector of Early American West memorabilia, minerals and gems.  He also cultivated roses and had a large collection of orchids.  He died in Portland, Oregon in 1993 at the age of 88.

The logo at the upper right corner on the reverse shows a K in a diamond shape with a crown and includes the identifying number. The K in the diamond logo appears on other cards and until this one distributed by Princess Continental that logo had remained a mystery.

For additional information, see:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/107365669/lambert-william-florin
https://www.britannica.com/technology/spring-wagon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covered_wagon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulky
http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/dating/mail_service/mail_wagon.php

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 409

Boxes of canned salmon

Both of the postcards shared this week are from Lantern Press Vintage Photographs.  The card above has the identification number of #1527 and has a vintage photograph of salmon boxes being loaded for shipment.  The card below is numbered #4136 and has a picture of some of the seiner fleet fishing boats that were used to catch the salmon.  Both postcards were purchased in Ketchikan and are scenes from that area.

Seiner Fleet Fishing Boats, Ketchikan, Alaska

The Alaska Packers' Association (APA) was the largest packer of canned salmon in Alaska.  It was based in San Francisco, founded in 1891 and sold in 1982.  In 1891 the Alaskan salmon industry was just beginning but already producing more canned salmon than they could sell.  The association was founded to organize and sell the surplus canned salmon and manage the salmon production more efficiently.  There were 31 canneries across Alaska in 1892.  The original APA is perhaps best remembered for operating one of the last fleets of tall sailing ships.  Part of the reason for using the sailing ships instead of steam was to economize.  The ships were part of The Star Fleet with each ship having Star in its name, such as Star of Bengal, Star of France, Star of Russia, Star of Alaska, etc.  By 1930 most of the sailing ships had been replaced by steam or diesel powered ships like the ones shown on the second card.

Canned salmon was the largest industry in Alaska from about 1900 through 1980 with some fluctuation due to the number of fish each year.  During that time canned salmon produced over 80% of Alaska's tax revenues.  

Many of our ancestors in the extended family worked in some capacity in or for the canneries of Alaska during the early 1900s up through the 1930s.  My Dad worked on fish traps and was hired to fend off salmon poachers.  This was at times a very dangerous job as the poachers were almost always armed and serious about stealing the fish.  He had some harrowing stories to tell about his time on the traps.  Walt Lorig, his dad Edd, and several others in the family worked in the canneries or on the fishing boats. 

Today the Seattle based trade organization "At-Sea Processors Association" uses the APA moniker.  The newer APA represents 7 companies and operates 19 vessels in the Alaska pollock and West Coast whiting fisheries.  The current APA has no connection to the earlier Alaska Packers’ Association even though it uses the same identifying initials.

For more information, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Packers’_Association

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 408

Wrangell Narrows, Alaska, 1926

The card above has the name Thwaites and the number 2160 at the lower left corner.  It was sent by a friend to I.C. Lee and dated 1926.  It was probably a black and white print that has faded to a sepia color. 

While our ship did not travel through the Wrangell Narrows seen in these two postcards from the 1920s, this is another locality that I recall my parents talking about.  The card above has a photograph by John Edward Thwaites who delivered mail to the costal communities.  He worked as a clerk for the Railway Mail Service beginning in 1905 and sailed on the S.S. Dora a mail boat traveling the route from Valdez to Unalaska and later in 1914 on the Seward-Seattle route.  As an amateur photographer he used a Kodak camera and documented his experiences.  The postcard market was booming and he continued to take photos selling thousands of photographic postcards with scenes from Alaska. 

The card below I found in a shop in Ketchikan.  It appears to have been taken about the same time and shows a slightly different angle of the same body of water.  The image number #3146 is found on the reverse and a notation that Lantern Press, Seattle, WA, printed the card.

Another view of Wrangell Narrows, Alaska, ca 1920s

Wrangell Narrows is a winding, 22 miles or 35 km, channel between Mitkof and Kupreanof Islands in Southeast Alaska.  Because of the navigational hazards there are about 60 lights and buoys to mark the safe passage areas.  The Narrows is named for the narrowest central portion of the channel.  Used by fishing boats and the Alaska Marine Highway ferries the Narrows are too shallow and narrow for the cruise ships. 

For more information, see: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangell_Narrows
http://content.lib.washington.edu/thwaitesweb/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Wrangell_Alaska

Didrik "Dick" Thompson, Update

 The last stone to have the plaques with names of Scandinavian immigrants attached

 Example of a plaque attached to the stone

Seattle has a Leif Erikson monument at the Shilshole marina near Golden Gardens Park.  The names of Scandinavian immigrants appear on the standing stones that surround the statue and on the base of the statue of Erikson.  The last stone will now have the final plaques added and there was one final notice sent out in January for any additional names.  In the past I had submitted Axel and Anna Hornnes Schroder and their names, dates of immigration, and where they came from can be found on a plaque on the base of the statue. 

 Leif Erikson monument, Shilshole, Seattle.  The last set of names will be attached to the large stone at the left side.

When this recent notice arrived saying that there was still limited space on the final stone I thought of all the people I could add and almost didn't send anything in since there are still so many in the extended family who would qualify.  Then it occurred to me that if I had to choose just one perhaps Dick Thompson was the best choice since he was a well known local policeman and appeared many times in the Seattle newspapers.  

Dick directing traffic in downtown Seattle, ca late 1920s

The unveiling ceremony for the last stone and plaques will be the 29th of April 2018.  I have a feeling Grandpa Dick would like to have his name displayed on a stone.  

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 298

Sinclairsholm, Skåne, Sweden, ca 1908

A side trip to a local antique mall netted this Axel Eliasson vintage postcard showing the front of Sinclairsholm Castle in southern Sweden.   The card is unused and has the number 4142 on the reverse in the lower left corner.  It was printed in Germany and distributed in the United States by the Swedish Importing Company of Worcester, Massachusetts.  All early color postcards were hand tinted or painted before mass printing.  

The original castle was constructed mainly of wood and completed in 1626.  There are been at least two major fires that resulted in changes to the outward appearance of the castle.  Today the main portion of the building dates from 1788.  One of the things that makes this particular card historically interesting is that the building has the French Chateau style mansard roof, designed by Mauritzberg From, that was the result of a major renovation completed in 1880.  There was another fire in 1904.  In 1956 a second major renovation and restoration project replaced the French Chateau style and restored the building to its original 1788 design, seen below in a Google Image.  It has a completely different look making the Chateau style a sort of historical oddity of less than 100 years.

Sinclairsholm, Skåne, Sweden, as it appears today

[photo:  Google Images and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclairsholm_Castle ]

]

Anders Sinclair or Sincklar (1555-1625), A Scottish nobleman, was a Danish privy counselor in the late 1500s to the early 1600s under the Danish king Christian IV.  He was also an envoy to England, a military colonel and the governor of Kalmar, Sweden following the Danish capture the city.  He  was also the holder of extensive fiefs in Denmark.  After he married Kirsten Kaas in 1600 he left the court and established this estate named for him.  Construction appears to have been begun around 1620 but not completed until 1626 a year following Sinclair’s death.   His son, Christian Sinclair (1607-1645) took over the ownership.  It was later purchased first by Jochum Beck with ownership changing hands a couple of times until 1808 when it was acquired by the family Gyllenkrook who have passed it forward in the family.  Through marriage it is now the estate of the family Barnekow and owned by Johan Barnekow. 

My family members may find it fun and interesting to note that among all the properties that he held, Anders Sinclair at one time exchanged one of his fiefdoms for Hammerhus on the Danish island of Bornholm since that island is where my paternal grandfather was born and lived until he came to America in the 1890s.  In 1982 we visited Bornholm and walked around the ruins of Hammerhus.  

Part of the Hammerhus, Bornholm ruins, Denmark, 1982

It is always fun to find some connection to places, events and people.   Postcards offer peeks into the past that often result in unexpected surprises. 

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%A5ne_County
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclairsholm_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4ssleholm_Municipality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sinclair_(privy_counsellor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scania
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclairsholms_slott&prev=search

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 295

 Oriental Limited, Great Northern Railway, 1912

This week’s postcard is the American version of the Canadian railway postcard previously shared.  Part of the “See America First” promotion by Great Northern Railway, the line went between Chicago, Illinois and Seattle, Washington then could connect with trans-Pacific Great Northern steamships headed to the Far East.  It was called “Oriental Limited.”  Great Northern produced the card with the photograph dated as 1912.  The stamp is a green George Washington profile, one cent, postmarked April 4, 1914 with the handwritten message in Norwegian.  This card like last week’s two from the Canadian Pacific Railway were found at the Washington State [model] Train show.

Reverse, showing logo, stamp & date

The Oriental Limited began in 1905 going from St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle with Chicago added in 1909 the year of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition held in Seattle.  My grandmother and a few of her nieces traveled from the east, Boston and New York, to Seattle in 1909 by train to see the Fair. They all ended up staying in the Pacific Northwest and not returning east.  Now I am wondering if they may have traveled on this train at least from Chicago the rest of the way west but it is impossible to tell.  There were other trains going west that were not as luxurious as this one.   The “See America First” route was advertised as the National Park Route although it did not go through the parks but was next to them.  It was possible to get off the train at various points, such as stations at Glacier and Yellowstone, and take some form of transport to visit the parks.  By 1926 the train was advertised as being able to make the journey in 70 hours. 

In 1929 the Empire Builder was introduced and by 1931 the Oriental Limited disappeared a causality of the Great Depression when Great Northern operated only one train on this route.  The Oriental Limited name returned in 1946 when a second train was added but became the Western Star in 1951.  Among the amenities offered on the train were services such as, passenger telephone access, afternoon tea, maid service in the Lounge car, a parlor car, and showers for passengers, as well a dining car with table linens and full service meals. 

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Limited

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 242

Valparaiso, Chile, ca 1980s

As I was looking through all the cards that Jim and Kelsey had forwarded to me this one of Valparaiso, Chile caught my eye.  As readers may recall, Axel Schroder the Danish sailor, jumped ship in Valparaiso around 1896-1897 and ended up working in the nitrate mines.  The oral history stories always made it sound like the mines were quite near to Valparaiso when in fact they were located much further north in towns like Humberstone, Santa Laura, Aguas Santas, Puelma, Pedro de Valdivia, Maria Elena, and Chacabuco.  We can’t be sure which mine but we can say that he had to work his way up the coast probably aboard ships until he reached northern Chile where he stayed for perhaps a year before moving north along the coast again finally ending up in Seattle in 1898 or 1899. 

Axel Schroder, ca 1899

In the 19th century nitrate or saltpeter was mainly used in the production of fertilizer and gunpowder.  It was called “white gold” and the Atacama Desert area of northern Chile has plenty of it.   Today, among other things, nitrate is used in instant cold packs, for heat storage and heat transfer in solar power plants, in the wastewater industry, as a food additive and preservative for meats, and also in mouthwash and dental gels.  The big boom in nitrate mining and exportation was from about 1870 to the beginning of World War II when other methods of making explosives were invented. 

When Axel was in Valparaiso it was before the Panama Canal had been built and it was a major trade route port.  After the canal opened in 1914 trade activity diminished dealing this port based economy a severe blow.  In the boom years the population soared from that of a small town to a city of 160,000 with colorful houses crowding the hillsides but after the canal opened and the economy began to falter many of the wealthier families left the city.  The city is now experiencing revitalization with many artists, cultural entrepreneurs, and thousands of tourists.   Population as of 2012 is listed as 284, 630.

The card above produced and distributed by Hispapel Ltda of Santiago, Chile has five numbered views on it of Valparaiso.  Corresponding identifications are found at the upper left on the reverse of the card along with the code 05-126 at the lower right.  Since the numbers on the front of the pictures may be difficult to distinguish, I am including them here.  The smaller pictures are, beginning at the top left, 1– Caleta S. Pedro, 2-Muelle Prat, 3-Caleta Portales and 5-Cerro Alegre.  Number 4 is the larger photo, Puerto.  The card looks perhaps printed in between the 1970s and 1990s.

Thanks again to Jim and Kelsey for sending the postcards!

For additional information and pictures of some of the mining relics, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_nitrate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valpara%C3%ADso
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humberstone_and_Santa_Laura_Saltpeter_Works

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 220

Yosemite National Park, the Fire Fall, Glacier Point, 1947

Western Publishing and Novelty Company of Los Angeles, California issued this 1947 Linen Type postcard of the fire fall at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park.  One of the most prominent publishers on the West Coast, photographer and publisher, Stanley A. Piltz used the C.T. Art-Colortone printing method to produce this card.  Linen Type postcards, popular from the 1930s to the 1950s, used paper with a high rag content giving the cards a fabric look and feel and with the advanced printing technique allowing the use of brighter colors.  This card titled “Yosemite National Park , Fire Fall, Glacier Point” has an informational paragraph on the reverse and is numbered on the front as 328 at the lower left and 36-HI-48 at the lower right.  

The card was sent by Axel Schroder to his daughter, Betty, as a birthday wish in 1947

Camp Curry today known as Curry Village is located within Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, in Mariposa County, California.  It opened in 1899 as a tented camp owned and operated by David Curry and Jenny Etta Foster (also known as Mother Curry).  For $2.00 a day a visitor could get “a good bed and a clean napkin with every meal.”  That would equal approximately $57.00 today.  In 1970 the name was changed from Camp Curry to Curry Village and it still offers tourist accommodations near Glacier Point.  There is a post office (opened 1909), cabins, a store, dining facilities and a lodge.  The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Some of the older structures still standing include the 1904 Old Registration Office, the 1914 entrance sign, the 1913 dance hall, the 1916 Foster Curry cabin, and the 1917 Mother Curry’s bungalow. 

In 1871 before Yosemite became a National Park a small hotel called Glacier Point Mountain House was built at Glacier Point directly above Camp Curry.  The Yosemite Fire Fall as shown on the card was an event that began the summer of 1872 and continued every night during the summer for almost 100 years ending in 1968.  Burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point to the valley 3,000 feet below.  Those watching from below saw what appeared to be a glowing waterfall. 

There was often a large bonfire at the small hotel on summer evenings.  At the conclusion of the evening events the embers and coals from the fire would be kicked over the edge of the cliff causing what came to be called the Fire fall.  The people below were so fascinated by the fiery waterfall they paid to have it continued, a practice that was kept until new owners discontinued it in 1897. 

After the Curry’s started the tent camp in 1899 they heard tales of the fire falls and decided to reestablish them in the early 1900s.  The “Indian Love Call” was sung at Camp Curry as the fire fell.  It was described as a sight long to be remembered.  The fire fall stopped again during World War II.  But by public demand the fire fall was back again after the war ended and continued for another 20 or so years before being discontinued permanently in 1968.  It must have been something else to witness; however, the dangerous possibilities of such a fire fall plus more public awareness of environmental issues would make this spectacle unthinkable today.

The stamp is a red, 2-cent Presidential stamp featuring the profile of John Adams

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Piltz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Firefall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry_Village,_California

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 214

 Wrangell Narrow, S.E. Alaska, ca 1926

 Reverse

The 1926 postcard above shows the Wrangell Narrows in Southeastern Alaska with the photograph taken by John E. Thwaites.  Thwaites was an amateur photographer and a federal government railway mail clerk who traveled on the wooden mail boat, S.S. Dora, between Valdez to Unalaksa delivering mail.   He used a Kodak camera to take his pictures and at some point he realized the potential of the postcard business and sold thousands of his photographic images of Alaska for use on cards such as this one. 

Although the card was sent to I.C. Lee from his friend, John, it is of the same area where my father, Bill Schroder, worked tending fish traps in the mid 1930s.  Fish traps were first constructed in the late 1890s and were still in use into the 1950s although the numbers of traps were diminishing.  There were at one time over 100 fish canneries headquartered in southeastern Alaska; however, the larger companies began buying out the smaller ones and today there are still fish canneries but only a few.  After Alaska became a state in 1959 all the remaining traps were decommissioned.  The fish traps were discovered to be the cause of severe damage to the salmon runs and general fishing in the area.  Today fishing and logging continue to be the mainstays of the Wrangell economy.

When Dad worked there part of his job was to fend off poachers who would steal most or all of the fish in the traps before the canneries could harvest them.  One story that was told about his time working for the Wrangell Fish Packing Company was when he was in his early twenties probably about 1936 or 1937.  A man woke him in the middle of the night and held him at gunpoint.  He was ordered to unlock the fish trap so the poachers could get at the fish.  At about the same time a soap company executive was out on a boat in the strait that night and thought he saw some suspicious activity near the traps.  He took his boat over to get a better look and had also apparently radioed ahead to the local law authorities.  They rescued Dad from the poachers.  The case went to trial even though the poachers threatened to come back and find Dad and kill him if he testified in court.  Dad did testify along with the soap company man and the poachers were convicted.

The 22-mile (35 kilometer) channel is narrow, shallow, and winding with navigational hazards.  About 60 lights and buoys mark the Narrows that run between the islands of Mitkof and Kupreanof in the Alexander Archipelago.  There is also a town named Wrangell at the northwest corner of Wrangell Island.  

The Tlingit people have lived on the island for thousands of years and there are numerous scattered petroglyphs just north of Wrangell.  The oldest non-native settlements on the island were founded by Russian traders who came in 1811 to what is the present-day site of the town of Wrangell.  The Hudson’s Bay Company of Britain started using the Tlingit trading routes under protest by the Tlingits in the mid 1800s.  The native population was severely affected by two smallpox epidemics in 1836 and 1840.  The Hudson’s Bay Company abandoned their fort in 1849 when the stocks of sea otter and beaver became depleted.  The United States built a military post called Fort Wrangell in 1868. 

For more information, please see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangell_Narrows
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangell,_Alaska
https://content.lib.washington.edu/thwaitesweb/
http://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/mfr504/mfr50433.pdf

If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 211

 Ross Dam

[photo by Pat Buller]

 Ross Dam powerhouse

[Ektachrone by Clifford B. Ellis.  

Postcard published by J. Boyd Ellis, Arlington, WA]

A couple of weeks ago we went on a hike in the North Cascades National Park up Thunder Creek, a major tributary of Skagit River feeding into Diablo Lake behind Diablo Dam.  The next dam above is Ross Dam, and the dam below Diablo is Gorge Dam.  These dams plus other regional hydroelectric dams provide 89.8% of the electricity used in Seattle.  Of the three dams Ross Dam is the highest at 540 feet, Diablo is 389 feet, and Gorge dam 300 feet.  All three are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

As I was growing up I remember my Mom and Dad (Marge and Bill Schroder) talking about the time that he worked on Ruby Dam.  Today there is no Ruby Dam and I wondered where it might have been.  When we visited the City Light visitor center in Newhalem, Washington I purchased these postcards and discovered why Ruby Dam cannot be found.  Originally when the construction project began what is now Ross Dam was then called Ruby Dam after Ruby Creek one of the major tributaries that joins the Skagit River at the point where the dam was being constructed.  It was renamed for J.D. Ross the first Superintendent of City Light and the architect of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project.  Ross died in 1939 and the dam was named for him in 1940. 

By process of elimination we have narrowed the years Dad worked on the dam to between 1938 and 1939.  Mom and Dad were married in 1939 near the end of the Great Depression in the United States and jobs were still scarce so he took it even though it meant only being able to come home every couple of weeks.  When Mom went up to visit him at the completion of the first section of the Ross Dam project one of the other people there discovered whom she had married and said,  “Oh, you married that fellow who did all that high work.”  Ross Dam was built in three stages, Dad worked on the first stage that took the dam up to 300 feet.  Since he was a carpenter he must have been building forms and scaffolding at the highest parts of the dam as the work progressed.  The second stage completed following World War II in 1946 added another 195 feet, and the final stage in 1949 added another 45 feet for a total of 540 feet.  Ross Dam is 1300 feet wide and is the fifth highest in the world.

Dad would live up at the site for a week or two and then come down for a weekend, I think, before returning to the job.  During the construction period a floating cookhouse was built as were floating bunkhouses for the employees.  These were located on Diablo Lake near what would become the powerhouse for Ross Dam.  The road up to the dams was not completed until after World War II so Dad would have had to take a train like the one pictured below at least part of the way.  The Old No. 6 engine and tender car are all that remain of the Skagit River Railway.  The 31 mile narrow gauge rail line was in operation from 1919 to 1954.  The engine and tender on display at the visitor center can be climbed on and the bell rung.  We saw several children climbing on it when we were there (and we did too).

No. 6 at the City Light Visitor Center, Newhalem, Washington

No. 6 Steam excursion train
[Color by Vandergon-von Normann, printed in Los Angeles, California, 1979]

It is possible to take City Light boat tours of Diablo Lake and the powerhouse of Ross dam at the end of the lake.  The train pictured on the above postcard is powered by a 1928 Baldwin 2-6-2 steam locomotive.  A note on the reverse of the card states the train tours ran from Sedro Woolley to Concrete in 1979.  Vintage cars were used as a remembrance of railroading's "Golden Age."  Number 6 was purchased new by Seattle City Light and was leased from them.  The train crew was furnished by Burlington Northern.  It is unclear if a tour train still makes the run.  A huge limestone deposit about 40 miles down river at the town of Concrete supplied the cement for the concrete for the dams.  The lake formed by the construction of Ross Dam, named Ross Lake is 24 miles long and reaches into British Columbia, Canada. 

The Alice Ross, 1935

The glacier fed water in Thunder Creek (a river really) and the lakes formed by the dams is the most beautiful milky green-blue color.  Tour boats like the Alice Ross, named after the wife of J.D. Ross, took visitors for scenic rides on Diablo Lake in 1935.

Thunder Creek

While we were hiking at Thunder Creek we saw signs at the ready to close the trail due to the severe forest fires we have had this summer.  It was only a few days after we had been there that the trail was closed due to the fires.  If we had not gone when we did I would not yet know where Ruby Dam was located. 

Many thanks to my brother who when I called and asked him also remembered the story and added some details.

For more information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Dam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skagit_River_Hydroelectric_Project
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=5347