The Burlington Bulletin on the 1956
Denver Zephyr is a beautiful book and tremendous work of scholarship. I commend John Schultz and the Burlington Route Historical Society, and I can see that I’m going to spend a few hours reading through it.
One addition tidbit of information. Page 50 has pictures of several menus used on the Denver Zephyr that feature wildflower paintings on their covers. The text says the paintings were done by “an anonymous artist.”
Actually, the paintings were done by Kathryn Fligg, an artist who graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1951 and was commissioned by Budd (probably through the Paul Crét architectural firm) to do paintings and murals in several of its trains. She did
murals for the
Kansas City Zephyr and I believe she did some murals in other Burlington trains such as the
Twin Cities Zephyr and
California Zephyr when those trains came in for reshopping.
But the Denver Zephyr was her finest work, at least for Budd. The five wildflower menu covers shown on page 50 only hint at her achievement. According to an email she sent me, she in fact produced 115 wildflower paintings for the train. The original paintings were hung in the bedrooms and compartments of the Denver Zephyr sleeping cars.
In the email, Fligg told me she didn’t think the roomettes got paintings. But I don’t know where to put 115 paintings if the roomettes didn’t get any. Bulletin 50 indicates there were 30 roomettes, 24 bedrooms, and 5 compartments per train, so for two trains that makes 58 bedrooms and compartments or 116 bedrooms, compartments, and roomettes. So it sounds like the roomettes probably got them as well (and perhaps her memory of doing 115 paintings was off by one).
The paintings on the front (and back) covers of the dinner menus (as well as on the Colorado room beverage menu) were replicas of a few of those 115 paintings.
Fligg (now Kathryn Fligg Lee) has at least
two different
web sites, but the work displayed doesn’t look anything like the work she did for Budd.
I’ve wondered if any of the surviving Denver Zephyr sleeping cars still have some of her original paintings. If anyone knows, please let me know. It would be nice to document those paintings.
Best,
Randal O’Toole
