Fruit From Washington invites you to follow the Northern Pacific Railroad from Seattle to Chicago
and click on various stops to view old postcard scenes along the way! If you're interested in taking a tour from Sandpoint, Idaho to Livingston, Montana on the old Northern Pacific Railroad track, visit
the Morning Side of the Mountains from Inland Sea to Deepest Valley.

The train had left Lake Keechelus and was racing easily down the banks of the Yakima. He was entering the country he had desired to see, and soon his interest wakened. He seated himself to watch the heights that seemed to move in quick succession like the endlessly closing gates of the Pass. The track still ran shelf-wise along precipitous knobs and ridges; sometimes it bored through. The forests of fir and hemlock were replaced by thinning groves of pine; then appeared the first bare, sage-mottled dune. The trucks rumbled over a bit of trestle, and for an instant he saw the intake of an irrigating canal, and finally, after a last tunnel, the eastbound steamed out of the canyon into a broad, mountain-locked plateau. Everywhere, watered by the brimming ditch, stretched fields of vivid alfalfa or ripe grain. Where the harvesting was over, herds of fine horses and cattle or great flocks of sheep were turned in to browse on the stubble. At rare intervals a sage-grown breadth of unreclaimed land, like a ragged blemish, divided these farms. Then, when the arid slopes began to crowd again, the train whistled Ellensburg on the lower rim of the plain. - The Rim of the Desert by Ada Woodruff Anderson (1915)

 

Picture Postcards and Other Memorabilia	The Flip Side of these Picture Postcards If you would like to see the back of some of these railroad and scenic postcards, click on the flip side! Many cards are unused and simply show the printed legend which describes the image on the front - but sometimes these cards have been stamped and addressed, with handwritten notes from decades past.
Postcard Views • Seattle, Washington	Postcard Backsides
• Gardiner, Montana	• Gardiner, Montana
• Chicago, Illinois	• Chicago, Illinois
• Mt. Rainier, Washington	• Mt. Rainier, Washington
• Paradise Inn
• Clark Fork River, Montana	• Clark Fork River, Montana
• Sheyenne Valley at Valley City, North Dakota
• N.P. Station, Livingston, Montana	• Livingston, Montana
• Punchbowl in Eruption, Yellowstone Park	• Punchbowl in Eruption, Yellowstone Park
• Shoshone Reservoir, Yellowstone Park	• Shoshone Reservoir, Yellowstone Park
•Fishing Cone, Lake Yellowstone	• Fishing Cone, Lake Yellowstone
• Cleopatra Terrace Showing Mammoth Hot Springs in the Distance Postcard Views (Continued) • Mud Geyser, Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Park	• Cleopatra Terrace Showing Mammoth Hot Springs in the Distance Backs (Continued) • Mud Geyser, Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Park (...one of the galaxy of the Mud drama which cuts much of a figure in Yellowstone Park...)
• Cleopatra Terrace	• Cleopatra Terrace (Here again we visualize, in imagination, the ancient Cleopatra—the beautiful woman...)
• Minute Man in Eruption, Yellowstone Park	• Minute Man in Eruption, Yellowstone Park (A very prompt individual...A favorite gentleman geyser.)
• Old Faithful in Eruption, Yellowstone Park	• Old Faithful in Eruption, Yellowstone Park (Not the heaviest, the highest, or the most erratic geyser. Old Faithful is just what its name implies, regular and faithful in both time of eruption and character of it. And it electrifies and uplifts the beholder and awes him.)

More Scenes West via the Northern Pacific Yellowstone Park Line

Click for historical background on the building of the Northern Pacific.

If you would like to print out a copy of the Northern Pacific System map, click on the link to the print version, set your Printer Properties to landscape, best quality and the Page Setup left and right margins to zero. We have reduced the size of the map, which unfortunately has also decreased the quality of the image. Many town names will not be legible in the one-page format. Click here for the Print Version of The Northern Pacific System Map.