Air view, Cascade Range, Oregon-Washington, circa 1939

About this postcard

An aerial view looking north along the crest of the Cascade Range, taken above Oregon's Three Sisters and reaching to Mount Rainier on the far horizon, some 190 miles away. A dark, snow-streaked cone fills the right foreground, with the rest of the chain stacked behind it in receding blue ridges. The caption names the peaks in order: Mount Washington, Three-Fingered Jack, Mount Hood, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens; the Mount Washington here is the Oregon peak in the Cascades rather than the better-known New Hampshire summit. The caption calls the range's peaks "prehistoric volcanoes," which fits: the High Cascades are a young chain of volcanic cones, and several of them, Hood and St. Helens among them, have erupted within the past few centuries. Wesley Andrews of Portland built much of his business on scenic view cards of the Pacific Northwest, and this long northward prospect over the volcanoes was one of the region's signature images.