Vintage Postcards of the Trail

While on my sabbatical a couple years ago, I was in a shop in Vermont that specializes in antique and rare books, looking through a collection of vintage postcards, when I found two that depicted places on the Lewis and Clark Trail all the way across the country. I put them away in a safe place and promptly forgot where, but I came across them again this weekend.

The first postcard is of Beacon Rock, now a Washington State Park in the Columbia Gorge. Lewis and Clark themselves referred to this enormous monolith as "Beacon Rock" and that is what it is called today, but notice that the printing on the postcard says "Castle Rock." This was its name for a hundred years until the "Beacon Rock" name was restored in 1916.


"Castle Rock" from the now historic Columbia River Highway on the Oregon side. You can still drive portions of the old highway, but in many places, it has been usurped by Interstate 84.

This postcard was never used and has neither copyright date nor postmark, but a clue to the year can be found in the reference to "Castle Rock" and in the huge commercial fish traps or wheels shown in the river. By 1900, there were almost 80 of these contraptions in the waters of the Columbia. These deadly and efficient traps utilized by the salmon industry (these were not the native fishing platforms) were banned by Oregon in 1927 and Washington in 1934.

The second postcard shows the "turn-around" on the ocean front in Seaside, Oregon. A bronze statue and sign now sit where the small shrub or tree is in this picture, but the broad expanse of beach still stretches away for miles in each direction. This postcard was mailed to "Dexter" in Massachusetts in 1923 and bears a one-cent stamp.


A day at the End of the Trail. Although this postcard was mailed in 1923, this photo looks about ten years older, judging by the clothes and the car. The message in the lower left corner says, "Am sending mother 3 of the prettiest kittens you ever saw!"


The Seaside turn-around today, facing west.

On the back of the Seaside postcard, the message refers to the author's "first sight of the Pacific," the "surprisingly cheap food," and the "beautiful Scotch broom" growing in the area--the latter now categorized as a noxious weed engulfing the Northwest. The message ends with, "Let's move out here!"

Indeed.

[Modern photo of Seaside turn-around by K. Dahl, copyright 2007.]