The many little gems in this broadsheet are hard to count. The H. Weinhards City Brewery advertisement stands out in particular as one who remembers the old brewery in Northwest Portland before gentrification took hold and it was gutted for a sports bar. I remember walking by as a kid, dodging used needles tossed on the streets, making eye contact and then avoiding eye contact with various urchins and vagrants tucked away in the stoops and loading docks of the former industrial area. The air for blocks would smell of stale yeast, spilled beer, and a certain rotten piss smell that you find only in the saddest of dive bars and aging sporting venues that have troughs for groups of men to collectively urinate into and never flush. That is the old Portland that I miss.
To say they don't make ads like this any more is one of those cliche truism that stands out as a cliche truism.
Unfortunately, there is little history behind this framed piece. Given the images and the print, I can assume that it is from around 1890-1900.
Although the date at the bottom of this picture states 1831, I highly doubt this is the actual date of the image. More likely, the images depicted are tributes to more historical rail expeditions. Given that the former owner of the Toy Museum's collection was a rail buff, I can imagine that he picked this up during some commemorative jaunt.
Still as a piece of commemorative advertising, a souvenir, the quality and imagery are impressive. Ephemera still entertains...
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