National Park Postcards.

To start the topic, five 1930s era postcards with beautifully photographed scenes of Great Smoky Mountains National Park:

Bryce Canyon National Park:

How about a few from Yellowstone? It's comforting to know, having been there about a year ago, that these scenes are still almost exactly the same, more than 100 years later. Happy Centennial, National Park Service!

Two more of Great Smoky Mountains National Park:

Here are four from Grand Canyon. All of these are from the territorial era. The Panorama Point card has a nice 1908 territorial postmark from Arizona's Grand Canyon post office.

I don't generally collect postcards much later than the '20s, but I found one for a quarter yesterday that I could not resist. Here's a card with a June 29, 1950 postmark from Sulphur, Oklahoma showing the Lincoln Bridge in Platt National Park. Now I'm fairly knowledgeable about the National Park Service, but I had never heard of Platt NP. Why? Because it no longer exists! In 1976, the national park was converted into the Platt Historic District of Chickasaw National Recreation Area. There are other instances of national parks being renamed or redesignated, but this is the first time I've come across a postcard of one!

Here are a couple 1908-ish cards from Yosemite National Park. Bet the rangers don't allow folks out on hanging rock these days!

Not really sure they allowed it then either, the three people on the overhanging rock all look to be dressed the same, and the one on the far right looks to be wearing a hat I'd expect to see on a ranger.

Here's one from 1899 by the Detroit Photographic Co. featuring the Petrified Forest Nat'l Park.

Crater Lake Oregon, 1927

I've a couple more from the Northwest. Here's a close-up of the Phantom Ship island that you can see (barely) in the card above. And a shot of Paradise Lodge, which still stands in Mt. Rainier National Park.

Denali National Park, Alaska.
Glacial flow on the slopes of Mount McKinley.

Publisher: Arctic Circle Enterprises

Would be nice if someone can define the decade of this postcard.

Here's a nice real photo card from Sequoia NP. I've been to this grove and it looks much the same today. Although it's in color now.