Featured "The Shasta Route" - Southern Pacific RR Scenic Guide

Found this souvenir "for sale only enroute on the trains on the Shasta Route" at a yard sale this morning for which the ad featured "French antiques, Mission furniture and Pottery." Goes to show you never know!

I got it to go with the collection of post cards (1903 - 1910) that my GG grandmother sent or brought back from her 2 cross-country trips (Brooklyn to Seattle and everywhere in between.) Given what some of the postcards say it is quite likely that she took this route on at least one of those trips. The art work of the illustrations is very much like that of some of the postcards.

A little normal wear from reading - the worst of which is a small chunk out of the title page at the bottom. All the full color illustrations are there. Research suggests this particular edition (they apparently made many different ones over the years) is from about 1915. Asking prices (eBay, Amazon and Etsy) online seem to range from about $35 to about $50 for this one. I didn't bother to see what it has sold for since I intend to keep it.

Here's a sampling of what's inside.

 

Very nice guidebook!

Do you know where in Brooklyn your relatives lived?

 

Williamsburgh.

I have their family bible and they included the actual addresses at which their children were born.

 

That is a lovely book!

 

I agree! AND it was only 8 dollars!!

 

Pat - Their addresses in the 1870's included 461 Grand St, 97 Hope St, 132 North 5th St and 281 Lorimer St.

 

There are 21 single page illustrations inside, plus the double page panorama in the centerfold (Mount Shasta and Black Butte) and the Route Map (from Chicago west to the Pacific.) Each location is described on pages in the front and back.

 

Oh, I taught in Williamsburg (current spelling) my first year out of college.

I imagine it changed considerably from when your relatives were there!

 

Of that I am certain, Pat!

 

The school where I taught is about 3-1/2 blocks from 461 Grand Street. I'd walk by Grand on my way from the subway.

The area was pretty run down when I worked there, but is being yuppified now.

 

Yuppified! Is "gentrified" no longer acceptable?

That was their first address after marriage. They seemed to move just about every year or two for a while until my GG Grandfather got himself established (he was a veterinary surgeon, as was his son after him.)

When he died in 1899 he seems to have been pretty well off for the times. But his widow survived him for almost 34 years - and seems to have spent the 10 years following his death "on the road" travelling here there and everywhere.

 

I like to play with words sometimes.

 

Books like that are terrific. They have such a sense of period to them.

 

BINGO Bakers!

 

Very cool, Terry! A dollar??? Excellent buy.

 

In the SF one you can see the navy ships/battleships with at least 2 underway.

 

Very cool.