Real Photo Paddle Wheel Steamboats Urbana Lake Keuka Hammondsport NY RPPC P303

Description: Here is a nice old RPPC Real Photo Post Card for your collection! This card comes from a 40 year collection of fine postcards including RP's. Hold To Lights, Halloween postcards, Expositions and some amazing NY State postcards! Check out the others in my eBay store and stop back often for new listings! This postcard shows a scenic view of a waterfront. Three old paddlewheel steamers are in view. The one to the left reads on its side Urbana. I cannot see a name on the center one but the one to the far right reads Halsey. The card front is printed and reads Hammondsport NY, Lake Keuka NY. One doesn’t normally associate the peaceful waters of Keuka Lake with any kind of war, but as the era of the steamboat entered its Golden Age in the decades following the Civil War, there were three of them. Each “war” was actually a struggle for dominance between competing steamboat companies on the lake. This was the time when men in business and finance amassed large fortunes throughout the economy by using competition to create monopolies. Steamboat companies on Keuka Lake did not escape that type of competition.Several companies ran boats up and down Keuka Lake. In 1877 a new company was formed that was Hammondsport oriented and based its schedule around the Bath and Hammondsport Railroad. They touched off a “boat war”. With newer and more preferred steamboats called The Lulu and the Urbana, the new company took business away from the older ones. Then entering into the scene was William L. Halsey from Rochester. He bought land on Keuka Lake and started buying stock in the Lake Keuka Navigation Co. As the story goes, he was incensed one stormy night in 1882 when the steamboat Urbana refused to stop at the dock that he owned. He confronted the boat by saying “If you can’t operate this boat to accommodate the public, I’ll build one of my own!” Their response was “You couldn’t build a rowboat!” He would go ahead and have steamboats built, further continuing the “steamboat war”. The card back is printed Photo Series W.J. Harris Pubr., W. Pittston PA and Lake Hopatcong NJ. The card back is undivided and is not postmarked. Condition is good to very good as shown. Guaranteed vintage and original. The watermark is not on the postcard you are buying here. All of our cards are shipped safely inside a rigid postcard mailer. Shop all of our postcards for sale in our eBay store and save on combined shipping! New cards added daily!

Price: 44.99 USD

Location: Sarasota, Florida

End Time: 2025-02-08T01:00:56.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD