Gleaming white walls, swaying palms, and a soaring Spanish Colonial clock tower — Los Angeles Union Station radiates the glamour of the golden age of rail travel in this vivid linen-era postcard mailed just two years after the terminal's celebrated 1939 opening. Billed on the card itself as "the most attractive railroad station in the country," the $11,000,000 showpiece was built jointly by the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, and Union Pacific railroads and sprawled across 40 acres of downtown Los Angeles. On November 3, 1941 — barely a month before Pearl Harbor would change everything — a traveler named Joe, vacationing with his family, dashed off a cheerful note to folks back in Cleveland: "Having a wonderful time & enjoying beautiful weather." The card traveled from L.A. to Mr. & Mrs. L. Russell at 3361 E. Monmouth, Cleveland, Ohio, franked with a 1-cent Washington stamp from the Presidential series — a penny's worth of sunshine from the West Coast.