Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Great Salt Lake Cut-Off at Sunset, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Great Salt Lake Cut-Off at Sunset, Great Salt Lake, Utah Postcard pg. 1 - 1936

Great Salt Lake Cut-Off at Sunset, Great Salt Lake, Utah Postcard pg. 2 - 1936

This is a 1936 genuine Curt Teich "C.T. Art-Colortone" vintage postcard from my maternal grandparents' collection. It was published by the Deseret Book Company of Salt Lake City, Utah.

I think it's a very pretty postcard. It shows the Salt Lake Cutoff at sunset.

I did a little research online about this Cutoff and found some interesting information from the following websites:
Wikipedia - Lucin Cutoff, Tresslewood - Lucin Cutoff Railroad Trestle, and History Utah to Go - The Lucin Cutoff. I learned that the railroad track across the Great Salt Lake was built by the Southern Pacific Company in the early 1900s. It was built to avoid the railway through Promontory Summit. Doing so cut off 44 miles of travel. The Cutoff begins near Ogden, Utah and ends at Lucin, Utah. In the 1950s the wooden tressles were replaced with a parallel causeway.

Transcription from back of postcard:
Fifteen miles west of Ogden, Utah, you actually "go to sea by rail" over the famous cut-off across Great Salt Lake. Affording an unique view of this great inland sea.

This cut-off extends west 102.9 miles across the northern arms of Great Salt Lake to Lucin. it was opened March 8, 1904, having cost $4,500,000 and two years of effort.

Seventy-two miles of the way the rails are laid on land and for thirty miles on rock fills and heavy trestle work.

The Great Salt Lake is more salty than any other body of water except the Dead Sea of Palestine.

Thanks for stopping by!


© 2014 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved

4 comments:

  1. That's a gorgeous postcard! Love the colors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. $4 million to save 44 miles? Certainly there is more to the story -- was the Promontory Summit dangerous or something? At least they gained one gorgeous view in the deal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Wendy,

      I probably should have mentioned that avoiding the Promontory Summit route meant avoiding hundreds of feet in steep mountain grades. In fact, it looks like they had to have helper engines to aid in pushing the trains over the Promontory range.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete

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