Dissecting “Jumbo”: A Picture Postcard History

How many stories can a single postcard tell? An early postcard of a tree named “Jumbo”—mailed from Santa Cruz in 1917—was found to contain over twenty topics for investigation. These include explorations of the image, message, sender, receiver, postmark, stamp, and publisher. Careful observation and the use of a wide variety of research tools helped illuminate this postcard’s many historical features.

Introduction

Old postcards can be rich sources of historical information and offer many avenues for exploring the past. This is the story of just one postcard, a picture of the redwood tree named “Jumbo” at the Santa Cruz Big Trees (now Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park).

The postcard was mailed in 1917 by Preston Sawyer of Santa Cruz to M. E. Milner of Kinsley, Kansas. “Thanks very much for your beautiful card,” he wrote. “I see you have been having tornadoes, etc. in your state. Any of them near Kinsley? Preston Sawyer, 169 Garfield St., Santa Cruz, Calif.” Who were Preston Sawyer and M. E. Milner? Why was the tree called “Jumbo”? Why the flag sticker on the back? In all, I found over twenty topics to investigate. It turns out that even something as “simple” as a single postcard can provide multiple windows into history.