Willson Prof Wal (1 results)

One souvenir postcard. 11.25 x 3.25 in. With birds-eye view by Caughey on recto, advertisement for Willson in lower right corner, center crease fold as issued; postcard information, and cancelled stamp & postmark for Portland addressed to W.H. Bilyen, 90 1/2 - 5th St., City [Portland, Oregon], minor dustsoiling, slight toning, very minor wear at fold crease, still VG copy. First edition of this uncommon folding souvenir postcard celebrating the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition, featuring and reproducing the famed Caughey birds-eye. The birds-eye depicts the Guild's Lake area of the grounds up and operating now bounded by Reed to Thurston Streets, and 31st to 24th Streets in NW Portland. Prof. Willson (fl. 1904-1920) began as a dance instructor with the Academy of Dancing located in the Hirsch Building, but within a few years of the Exposition set up his own dance studio, and was noted instructor of Waltzes. This card advertises the fact that couples could dance for .50˘, while an "Extra Lady" for .25˘, and even better for men in the very hot and humid Portland Pavilion, they could dance without their coats in Shirt Waists. Caughey (1851-1925) was an Ohio Civil War veteran, an itinerant chalk plate artist, and had just created the year before in Feb., 1904 a Birds-Eye view reproduced over two pages in the Lewis and Clark Journal, with noted birds-eye artist and cartographer, Fred Routledge (1871-1936). Caughey began producing birds eye views in and around Portsmouth, NH in the 1880's, and eventually became a commercial artist and newspaper editor in Portland, Oregon where he would often produce images for the Mutual Label & Lithographic Co. No copies in Worldcat. See: Birds-Eye View of Lewis and Clark Fair - Routledge-Caughey, Lewis and Clark Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Feb., 1904), pp. 16-17; Richard Candee, Tracking the Little Known J.H. Rollin Caughey: Illustrator of New Hampshire's Victorian Industries (2020); Craig Clinton, The Pictorial Maps of Fred A. Routledge, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 117, No. 1 (2016), pp. 38-75.