Rare postcard bird's-eye view of the Columbia River by Fred Routledge, Oregon's best mapmaker.
The view looks over the Columbia River from the south, showing Portland, Oregon, Mount Hood, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens. Spokane is labeled in the far distance.
The view is surrounded by eight photographic vignettes of landmarks around the Columbia River.
Like much of Routledge's work, this view was made for the Spokane, Portland, & Seattle Railway.
This would appear to be among the earlier and rare of Routledge's pieces.
Fred Routledge (1871-1936) was an Oregon artist and pictorial mapmaker, who spent much of his professional life as a correspondent for the Morning Oregonian. His career lasted from the 1890s to the early 1930s. Routledge was a well regarded artist, who received awards for his paintings, including a first prize at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. His ephemeral work as a pictorial cartographer was also very well regarded.
Routledge was born in Abilene, Kansas, raised in Rockford, Illinois, and settled in the Portland area in 1886 with his family. He began working as an illustrator with the West Shore publication before its demise in 1891, thereafter finding wor at the Oregonian in 1895. The January 1, 1896 "Where Rolls the Oregon," is his first work of significant note.