In January of 1911, Papa was in Portland, Oregon, but he was thinking of his little girl in Ashtabula, Ohio.

Ashtabula is a city in northeast Ohio, where the Ashtabula River empties into Lake Erie.

Papa selected a postcard illustrated with a hand-colored lithograph of the Oneonta Gorge on the Columbia River.

The Gorge, now designated a unique botanical area by the US Forest Service, is home to four waterfalls and dozens of aquatic and woodland life forms unique to the area.

(The Oneonta Gorge was named by Carleton Eugene Watkins, a native of Oneonta, New York, who was the first to photograph the area as he traveled west during the California Gold Rush.)

The postcard was printed by Britton & Rey, Lithographers, of San Francisco.

Addressed to Miss Mary Smith of 504 Lake Street in Ashtabula, the postcard does not have any further message on the reverse.

One hopes Mary enjoyed the postcard, that the enterprise in Oregon was concluded successfully, and that Papa returned safely to his “little girlie”.