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This description has been created to the best of our ability, and mayoccasionally contain errors. You are purchasing the exact item shown in thephotos. Please review all pictures carefully, as they serve as the primarydescription of the item\'s current condition, features, and details.
A genuinely scarce Lake Tahoe origin: an 1890 cover struck with the GLENBROOK, NEVADA circular datestamp, mailed from the little lumber port on the lake\'s eastern shore across the Sierra to Sonora in the California Mother Lode. The 2c green stamped envelope was uprated with a 2c carmine adhesive to pay a 4c double-weight rate.
1. Postal Markings & Operational Analysis
The Format: A United States 2c green Washington stamped envelope (entire) of the 1887–94 series, the printed indicium reading UNITED STATES POSTAGE / TWO CENTS at the upper right. The envelope measures approximately 5½ x 3 inches (about 140 x 78 mm) and carries a printed return instruction down the left edge rather than a named corner card. It is uprated with a 2c carmine Washington adhesive of the 1890 Small Bank Note issue, affixed to the left of the indicium.
The Origin Postmark: A clear strike of the GLENBROOK / AUG 17 / 1890 / NEVADA circular datestamp sits at the upper left, with a second strike of the same device tying the adhesive at the right. Between them is a separate concentric-circle (target) killer, struck on the envelope rather than on a stamp — the clerk\'s killer and datestamp were separate handstamps here, not a duplex, and the target landed clear of both pieces of postage.
Postal Rates & Law: Under the rate structure effective July 1, 1885, domestic first-class letters travelled anywhere in the United States at 2 cents per ounce. The 2c imprinted envelope plus the 2c adhesive makes 4 cents — a double-weight letter of more than one and not over two ounces, a bulkier-than-usual enclosure for a personal correspondence.
Payment Status: Fully prepaid at origin; no postage due or deficiency markings are present.
Receiving Mark: The reverse carries a SONORA, CAL circular datestamp dated AUG 20, giving a three-day transit. In 1890 Sonora had no railroad of its own — the Sierra Railway of California was not incorporated until February 1897 and reached Jamestown only in November of that year — so the last leg of this letter\'s journey out of the San Joaquin Valley was still made by stage.
The Destination Address: Addressed in a fine copperplate hand to “Miss Frankie Riordan, Sonora, Cal., Tuolumne Co.”
2. Historical Significance
Glenbrook, Nevada is the oldest settlement on Lake Tahoe, dating to 1860, when Captain A. W. Pray built the first sawmill on the lake; it grew into the largest lumber-manufacturing town in Nevada, cutting timber for Virginia City and the mines of the Comstock Lode. The Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company, headquartered at Glenbrook and controlled by the Bliss family, operated from 1875 to 1898 and moved roughly 750 million board feet of lumber off some 80,000 acres of timberland, hauling logs on its own narrow-gauge railroad up to Spooner Summit and shooting them down a flume toward Carson City.
By the date of this cover the Comstock boom had collapsed and with it the demand for Tahoe lumber; the Bliss interests were in the middle of the pivot from timber to tourism that would produce the Glenbrook Inn, run by the family for decades afterward. An August 1890 Glenbrook postmark therefore falls in the narrow window between the sawmill era and the resort era, from a post office that has never served more than a very small lakeside community — which is why covers from it are seldom offered.
The destination, Sonora, is the seat of Tuolumne County, one of California\'s original 1850 counties and a Mother Lode gold town. Searches of readily available genealogical and local-history sources turned up nothing that can be attributed with confidence to the addressee, Miss Frankie Riordan; this appears to be private family correspondence, and no claim is made here beyond what the cover itself shows.
3. Transcription
There is no enclosed letter; the piece is offered as a postal-history cover. Address panel, as written:
Miss Frankie Riordan,
Sonora.
Cal.
Tuolumne Co.
Printed vertically at left: “If not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to”.
Condition: Toned and soiled overall with edge wear, small nicks and splits at the corners and along the top edge, and light creasing; the Glenbrook datestamp, the adhesive and the Sonora backstamp are all legible. Please study the photographs, which form part of the description.
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