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POSTER: Great
American Overland Route
The importance of the Overland Route, of which the rails of the Central Pacific formed the western segment, was brought into sharp focus in this revision of the earlier travel poster. By this date, July 1872, the San Francisco ticket office had been moved from California Street to No. 2 Montgomery Street.
As attractions for the traveler, scenic considerations competed with engineering features. At the top of this poster were two line drawings featuring the American River Canyon and the Palisades along Nevada's Humboldt River. The novel snow shed then called a "snow gallery" drew the attention of the observer. Rated as construction marvels of their day, snow galleries stretched along the rails for 40 miles. Rotary snow plows made possible a reduction in snow sheds to less than six miles. Not all railroad men were favorably impressed; one veteran described his run as "railroading in a barn."
The Assistant Superintendent John Corning died a few years later, but a town in Northern California perpetuates his name.
This is Number Seven of twelve Keepsakes issued during 1969 to its members by The Book Club of California in commemoration of the centennial of the transcontinental railroad. The series has been edited by David F. Myrick and designed and printed by Lawton and Alfred Kennedy.
Courtesy The Book Club of California.