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A 5.5x3.5" vintage RPPC photo postcard from the estate of a vintage automobile postcard collector. This was part of a huge collection of antique postcards.
Photo Overview
Real photo postcard showing four well-dressed men in suits and hats posing in an early brass-era touring car parked in the middle of a flax field near Beach, North Dakota, around 1909. The distinctive rounded barrel-style hood strongly suggests this is a Franklin air-cooled touring car, a design signature of the Franklin Automobile Company of Syracuse, New York during this period. The driver grips the wheel while his passengers, one standing tall in a light-colored hat, strike confident poses amid the tall prairie grass.
The handwritten message on the back confirms the setting: the picture was taken while the group was in a flax field in Beach, N. Dak., during the height of the western North Dakota homestead boom. The card was mailed to Miss Ida Niederfrank of Waterloo, Iowa, and carries an October postmark from Strawberry Point. A wonderful piece of early automobile and Northern Plains homesteading history, from the estate of a lifelong vintage automobile postcard collector.
Historical Notes
Beach, North Dakota was a boomtown of the final American homestead rush. Founded along the Northern Pacific Railway, it swelled with settlers between 1905 and 1910, and flax was the classic first crop planted on freshly broken prairie sod - exactly the field pictured here. Beach became the county seat of Golden Valley County when it was organized in 1912, but the severe droughts of the 1910s drove many of those hopeful homesteaders back east, and the region\'s population peaked within a decade of this photo. Beach survives today as a small ranching and farming community on the Montana border.
The Franklin Automobile Company, whose air-cooled machines wore this distinctive rounded hood, was one of the most technically advanced American automakers of the era. Franklin cars famously proved their durability in cross-country endurance runs, making them a natural choice for the rough roads of the northern plains. The company built air-cooled luxury cars until the Great Depression finally closed its doors in 1934.
Browse our complete RPPC Photo Postcard photograph collection.
Text Present
Handwritten in ink on the back:
"Dear Friend - This picture was taken while we were in a flax field in Beach N. Dak. there is going to be a surprise party at Wager this eveing will go if nothing happen till than Jen"
Additional handwriting along the upper left edge: "Ona Carl has gone to Cal... hoping to hear from you soon"
Printed on back: "POST CARD" "CORRESPONDENCE" "ADDRESS"
Postmarked Strawberry Point, October 27, with one cent Franklin postage stamp.
Print analysis
This is an original Type 1 real photo postcard, printed from the original negative at or very near the time the photograph was taken. The divided back format, the one cent green Benjamin Franklin stamp (1908 issue), and the circa 1909-1910 postmark all confirm the card was produced and mailed within a year or two of exposure. The silver gelatin continuous-tone image shows no halftone or collotype dot pattern under magnification, confirming this is a true photographic print.
Condition
All postcards we sell are in fair to excellent vintage condition. Please see photos for any tears, folds, smudges, or other age damage that may be present.
