Shasta Springs was a popular summer resort on the Upper Sacramento River in Northern California.
The resort was on the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Apparently, even those passengers not traveling to the resort could stop in Shasta Springs and taste the waters.
The Shasta brand of soft drinks were produced with water from the natural springs on the property.
Alas, the resort is gone, and this area of Crystal Falls is now overgrown entirely with blackberry bushes.
In 1906, the resort was flourishing, and father stopped there while traveling by train.
Father sent a postcard to his daughter, Miss Elizabeth Eliot, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The postcard bears a hand-tinted photograph of Crystal Falls at Shasta Springs.
The photograph was published by Edward M. Mitchell of San Francisco.
On the face (only the address could be written on the back), Father reports that “this is where we got a drink of water when the train stopped…”
Father sends “much love” to Miss Elizabeth.
Because the postcard was postmarked in Portland, Oregon, we may assume that Father mailed the postcard at the end of his rail journey.
It seems that Elizabeth treasured the postcard as it was preserved in good condition for more than a century.