Northern Pacific – H. J. Titus and the Great Big Spud Line
Titus Has Chicks For Easter On His Diners
Eats Artist Of Great Big Spud Line Will Make Guests Feel At Home
As is already well known by the patrons of the Northern Pacific railway, the dining car department rarely allows a holiday of any kind to pass without making a special effort to create in the dining cars something of the atmosphere of the homes as each occasion would be celebrated by the travelers, most of whom are absent of necessity. Superintendent H. J. Titus of “Great Big Baked Potato” fame is always equal to the occasion, and never does things by halves.
Upon being asked as to his Easter plans, Mr. Titus has made the following announcement:
“For the benefit of its passengers who may not be fortunate enough to spend next Easter Sunday at home with their families or friends, the Northern Pacific railway has arranged to commemorate this day in a most appropriate manner by the exhibition in its dining cars of little live chicks incubated on its own poultry farm. These will be placed in a little chicken house built for the occasion, the house being set on the rear buffet in the dinning car and surrounded by a little wire fence so as to give the little birds room to walk about on the buffet.
“We will also have the dining cars decorated with Easter lilies, stuffed rabbits, ducks and roosters, which will be placed about the cars in such a way as to attract the most attention, and we shall endeavor to surround the car with an atmosphere of Easter-tide as will, we trust, favorably appeal to our guests and impress them with our efforts to make their journey on that day as emblematic of Easter as possible and strive as much as possible to make them feel at home.”
The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on April 1, 1915.
You may think this article reports on something almost too fantastic to be believed, but it was likely true. The Northern Pacific dining experience was no doubt something to behold. The link below, for example, points out the extreme efforts to which the NP, and Superintendent H. J. Titus, went to provide remarkably big potatoes for their patron’s dinners: