Great Big Baked Potato Inkstand

These potato inkwells, smothered in butter with a spoon at the ready, were part of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s advertising campaign “Route of the Great Baked Potato”.  Made by the Art Metal Works in New Jersey, there is both a “single” inkwell and “double” inkwell.

Hazen Titus was appointed as the line’s dining car superintendent in 1908. He learned that Yakima Valley farmers were unable to sell their potato crops because the potatoes they were growing were simply too large; they fed them to the hogs. Titus learned that a single potato could weigh from two to five pounds, but that smaller potatoes were preferred by the end buyers of the vegetable because many people considered large potatoes inedible due to their thick, rough skin.

Titus and his staff discovered the “inedible” potatoes were delicious after baking in a slow oven. He contracted to purchase as many potatoes as the farmers could produce that were more than two pounds in weight. Soon after the first delivery of “Netted Gem Bakers”, they were offered to diners on the North Coast Limited beginning in early 1909. Word of the line’s specialty offering traveled quickly, and before long it was using “the Great Big Baked Potato” as a slogan to promote the railroad’s passenger service. Hollywood stars were hired to promote it (Lillian Russell among others).

When an addition was built for the Northern Pacific’s Seattle commissary in 1914, a Railway Age reporter wrote, “A large trademark, in the shape of a baked potato, 40 ft. long and 18 ft. in diameter, surmounts the roof. The potato is electric lighted and its eyes, through the electric mechanism, are made to wink constantly. A cube of butter thrust into its split top glows intermittently.” Premiums such as postcards, letter openers, ink blotters (one pictured here) and spoons were also produced to promote “The Route of the Great Big Baked Potato”; the slogan served the Northern Pacific for about 50 years.

Link to an article with pictures about Northern Pacific’s Great Big Baked Potato: kllpotato.pdf (klnl.org)

There was even a song! Click on this link to hear the song while you hear the story and view historic pictures of this successful advertising campaign: Great Big Baked Potato (youtube.com)