This colorful scene of the Rocky Mountains was printed as an advertisement of The Prudential Insurance Company.
Prudential, headquartered in Newark, NJ, published postcard advertisements featuring a variety of natural wonders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudential_Financial
In other postcard stories, we have seen similar advertisements – lovely drawings of Lake George and of the Delaware River.
Here, we see a lone rider and a figure on foot traversing a road along reddish cliffs, under a clear blue sky.
Not mailed, this postcard has no personal story attached to it.
The story of the location, however, has some fascinating features.
Ute Pass is located west of Colorado Springs and north of Pikes Peak.
The steep canyons were formed by the retreat of glaciers and melt water erosion, and simultaneous thrust of tectonic plates.
Herds of buffalo passed used this natural pass to move from winter to summer grazing lands.
The buffalo migrations through this pass for many centuries has made ruts in the bedrock.
Indigenous peoples followed the buffalo trail as a trade route to carry salt from Colorado salt flats to other indigenous communities on the west coast.
In the 19th century, a mining railroad ran through Ute Pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_Pass_(Rampart_Range)
The Williams Range, noted in the postcard title, are a subset of the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_Mountains
Today, there is a Williams Ranch resort and hunting club, and A Williams Ranch Park in the area of Ute Pass.
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On the reverse, we see price ranges for “Industrial Policies” and “Ordinary Policies” that are offered by the Prudential Company.
In red letters, now very faded, we can distinguish the name of the agent who distributed this advertisement:
“J. G. Steinert, Agt.”
Mr. Steinert worked from an office on Wall Street in Boston.
We do not know if the postcard was preserved by someone who was deliberating about an insurance policy or by a collector who was pleased by the beautiful scene of the West.
