The Northern Pacific Railway's Wonderland

The Wonderland Advertising Campaign

In 1883, the Northern Pacific Railway began rail service to Yellowstone, providing luxurious hotels for the America's first generation of wilderness tourists.  By 1885, NPRR had begun an advertising campaign which presented the varied natural wonders of Yellowstone as "Wonderland", and the Northern Pacific line had become "The Wonderland Route."  

[For a lively history of the role of railroad advertising in that era, visit Joshua Johns' website:  All Aboard - The Role of the Railroads in Protecting, Promoting, and Selling Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks.  And to support efforts to preserve the history of America’s first northern transcontinental railroad, visit the website of the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association.]

An 1884 NPRR brochure was entitled Alice's Adventures in the New Wonderland. The Yellowstone National Park, tapping the twenty-year-long popularity of Lewis Carroll's imaginative children's book.  The railway advertising theme continued a practice of describing Yellowstone and the scenic Dakota territories as a "Wonderland":

• Maguire, Henry N. The Black Hills and American wonderland. Chicago, Donnelley, Lloyd & Co., c1877. 
  

• Stanley, Edwin James. Rambles in wonderland, or, Up the Yellowstone : and among the geysers and other curiosities of the national park. New York : D. Appleton, 1878. 
  

• A Brief History of Dakota, the Wonderland! Including Sketches of Huron, St. Lawrence, the Soil, the Crops, Official Weather Report, and a Revised Synopsis of the United States Land Laws. Huron, Dakota, The Huronite Steam Publishing House, 1882.
  

• Wylie, William Wallace. Yellowstone National Park, or, The great American wonderland: a complete description of all the wonders of the park, together with distances, altitudes, and such other information as the tourist or general reader desires : a complete hand, or guide book for tourists. Kansas City, Mo. : Publishing House of Ramsey, Millett & Hudson, 1882. 
  

• Chicago and North Western Railway Company. The Early History and Rapid Progress of That Wonderland, Central Dakota. Chicago, Poole Bros., 1883.

NPRR brochures and annual Wonderland guidebooks initially focused upon the virtues of Yellowstone as a resort destination.  Within a few years, however, the guides were expanded to extol the sights, natural history, and increasing development and opportunities along the northern transcontinental railway. With the extension of steamboat service to the Klondike gold mines, NPRR's Wonderland came to include the entire Canadian west coast and lower Alaska.

Below is a list of publications from NPRR's Wonderland advertising campaign. (Please notify us of others that you find.).  The thumbnail images to the left are of those covers which could be found. Asterisks mark the publications that we have been able to scan for this series of BookWebCDs. We continue to seek the unmarked issues, with hopes of eventually compiling a complete set of scans.

Year		Title
1884		The Wonderland of the World.  (64 pages)
1885		The Wonderland Route to the Pacific Coast.  (64 pages)
1886	*	Wonderland; or Alaska and the Inland Passage, by Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, with a Description of the Country Traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad.  (John Hyde, 96 pages)
1888	*	Wonderland, or, The Pacific Northwest and Alaska : with a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. (John Hyde, 94 pages)
1889		Wonderland, or, The Pacific Northwest and Alaska : with a description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. (John Hyde, 94 pages)
1890		Journey through Wonderland; or, Pacific Northwest and Alaska, with description of the country traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad.  (Elia Wilkinson Peattie, 94 pages)
1891	*	A Ramble in Wonderland: being a description of the marvelous region traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad.  (Albert B. Guptill, 105 pages) - spider-web cover
1892	*	A Ramble Through Wonderland: being a description of the marvelous region traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad.  (Albert B. Guptill, 105 pages) - lady traveler cover;
1893	*	6,000 miles through wonderland.  (Olin D. Wheeler, 106 pages)
1894	*	Indianland and Wonderland.  (Olin D. Wheeler, 108 pages)
1895	*	Sketches of Wonderland: a Land of Rolling Plains, Boundless Grain Fields, Sculptured Lands... Penetrated by the Northern Pacific Railroad. (Olin D. Wheeler, 108 pages)
1895		Wonderland junior. (Olin D. Wheeler, 63 pages)
1896	*	Wonderland '96. (Olin D. Wheeler, 112 pages)
1897	*	Wonderland '97. (Olin D. Wheeler, 108 pages)
1898	*	Wonderland '98. (Olin D. Wheeler, 103 pages)
1899	*	Wonderland '99. (Olin D. Wheeler, 104 pages)
1900	*	Wonderland 1900. (Olin D. Wheeler, 132 pages)
1901	*	Wonderland 1901. (Olin D. Wheeler, 107 pages)
1902	*	Wonderland 1902. (Olin D. Wheeler, 111 pages)
1903	*	Wonderland 1903. (Olin D. Wheeler, 111 pages)
1904	*	Wonderland 1904. (Olin D. Wheeler, 116 pages)
1905	*	Wonderland 1905. (Olin D. Wheeler, 119 pages)
1905	*	Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon - June 1 to October 15, 1905. (Olin D. Wheeler, 55 pages) - This visitor guide, done in the style of the Wonderland annuals, celebrated the Exposition and its Northwest setting.
1906	*	Wonderland 1906. (Olin D. Wheeler, 69 pages)
1906		Eastward Through The Storied Northwest or Homeward from California Over The Shasta-Northern Pacific Route via Portland, Puget Sound, Yellowstone Park, Minneapolis and St. Paul. (Olin D. Wheeler, 62 pages) - First issued in 1906 and reissued a number of times through 1916.
1910	*	Through Wonderland - Yellowstone National Park. (A. M. Cleland, 70 pages) - Published after Wheeler's departure, this is a colorful guide focused entirely on the sights and wildlife to be found within the park.
1914	*	Yellowstone National Park, America's Only Geyser Land. (A. M. Cleland, 40 pages) - Following the Wonderland series, NPRR continued to advertise access to the wonders of Yellowstone Park.

Earlier editions of Wonderland (1893 and 1894) inserted pages of  two-color illustration within the brown- or black-ink text sections. Each issue included a four-color map of Yellowstone Park, and a black and white map of the Northern Pacific Railway route. By 1901, the use of color was limited to a few illustrations or chapters per issue.

 

The influence of Art Nouveau is increasingly seen in the annual, from the ornate embellishments of illustrations in 1896 and chapter titles in 1897, to the sculpted reliefs which dramatized the title of each chapter in the 1900s, and in the cover art from 1897 through 1903.

Thomas Moran

Through the influence of NPRR founder Jay Cooke, young painter Thomas Moran joined the 1871  federal survey of the Yellowstone region. Moran's paintings of the Yellowstone Wonderland were used by the railroad to promote the formation of the first national park, and to advertise its wonders to the American traveling public. His paintings were widely reproduced and were printed in Thomas Murphy's Three Wonderlands of the American West. (1913), an appreciation of Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon.  (For the story of this famous painter of America's National Park landscapes, see the Dallas Museum of Art website: Thomas Moran and the Spirit of Place.)  Moran also joined in John Wesley Powell's geological survey of the Grand Canyon in 1872. 

Olin D. Wheeler

In the later years of the Colorado River survey, Powell employed topographer Olin D. Wheeler.  Wheeler became the advertising editor for the Northern Pacific Railway and the author of Wonderland from 1892 to 1909.  His diverse articles on the history and scenery of the Northwest led him to a life-long passion for regional historical research. The opening 76-page chapter of his 1900 edition of Wonderland summarized the 1804-06 journey of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. To research the piece, Olin D. Wheeler thoroughly traveled the exploration route, and in 1904 he published a two-volume, 800-page centennial history of the Corps of Discovery. 

The Wonderland BookWebCDs.
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