Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
The railway police : and The last trolley ride
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Rare Books
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Los Angeles' streets were still dominated by the trolley car when Dave Redinger opened a private engineering practice early in 1914. This view of rush hour shows Los Angeles Railway trolley cars lined up on East Seventh Street, waiting their turn to cross the equally busy Main Street. All of these trolleys, and much of downtown Los Angeles, was receiving electricity from the new Big Creek power plants.
photCL SCE 12 - 00048
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Manuscripts
This manuscript written by Sidney Bernard Reeve describes a confrontation between German shepherd police dogs and a rattlesnake that took place on an afternoon in June 1928. It occurred while Reeve was on a surveying job in the Santa Monica Mountains. Along with his assistants, Reeve was accompanied by a government ranger and his two police dogs - one male and one female. The female dog was the mother of the male dog. Before the ranger managed to shoot the rattlesnake dead with his revolver, the mother dog had already been struck twice by its poisonous fangs. The ranger thought it best to put the poor suffering dog out of her misery, but Reeve insisted on using his poison kit to try to save the dog's life. Reeve used his syringe to inject the mother dog with two separate doses of permanganate of potash. Clearly in agony, the dog's head had swollen to double in size. Reeve also gave her some medicine and plenty of water. The ranger took the poisoned dog to a veterinary surgeon that evening, and was told that all he could do was take good care of her and wait and see what happens. Then, a little more than a month after the incident, while Reeve was out on another surveying job, he again encountered the ranger with his two dogs. Reeve was overcome with tears of joy when he saw that the mother dog had fully recovered from her nearly fatal poisoning.
mssHM 4372
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Rare Books
This collection consists of railroad photographs, ephemera and publications, 1829-2010, with the bulk of material from the early- to mid-20th century. The focus is chiefly locomotives and trains (steam and diesel) of major railroads and interurban electric railways of the United States and Canada. Also represented in the collection are smaller shortline and narrow-gauge railroads; other foreign railroads; streetcars (or trolleys); and burgeoning light rail and subway systems. Most of the ephemera is printed material produced by railroad companies for promotional and business purposes, such as annual reports, brochures, route maps and guides, timetables, tickets, dining menus, stationery, stock certificates, bond coupons and other items. There are also many city and state tourist guidebooks describing sights along rail routes or promoting land available for farming, mining or home-building across the United States. Also included are items produced for or by railroad employees, such as instruction and safety manuals, train orders, freight bills and in-house newsletters. Railroad industry publications, statistics and reports can be found in the American Association of Railroads files, which are part of Donald Duke's subject files on railroad-related topics. Throughout the ephemera files are newspaper and journal clippings, often from scarce small press and trade publications such as The Railway and Engineering Review, The Railroad Gazette, The Santa Fe Magazine, The Western Railroader, Railway Age and others. In addition to railroad history, other topics of social and cultural historical interest in the ephemera are: Depictions of African Americans and Native Americans in mass-marketed train travel brochures. There are many examples that reflect American cultural and class stereotypes in the early- to mid-20th century. Selected files are noted in the container list. Occupational safety and health: See railroad worker safety manuals and accident prevention literature in ephemera files. History of food and drink: See numerous dining and beverage menus throughout Railroads and Foreign Railroads ephemera files (not always noted in container list). History of graphic design and typography: See examples of early- and mid- 20th century popular styles in printed ephemera throughout collection. Photographs and negatives: The photographs depict locomotives, freight and passenger trains, logging railroads, electric interurbans and streetcars across the United States. This was primarily a publishers file of ready-for-press photographs, which are almost all 8 x 10-inch black-and-white prints, made approximately 1950s-1980s. The photographs were made chiefly by various amateur train photographers, including Donald Duke, but most are uncredited. There are some copy prints (photographs of other photographs), and a few original photographs from the late 19th-early 20th century. Some photographs have locations and dates written on the back, but many are unidentified other than the name of the railroad. There are a few files on Ward Kimball (1914-2002), one of the original animators for Walt Disney Studios and an avid rail enthusiast. There are some photographs, biographical materials, and a file on his personal backyard narrow-gauge steam railroad, Grizzly Flats Railroad, in San Gabriel, California.
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Visual Materials
A collection of 25 photographs, most likely compiled by railroad electrical engineer Samuel Horace Anderson, with an emphasis on early transportation innovations and technologies. The group includes railway-related images in Los Angeles, California, as well as a few from Seattle, Washington (items 3-7); views of various trolley cars of the Pacific Electric Railway and Los Angeles Railway; Barn No. 1 of the Los Angeles Railway with six horse-drawn tower cars lined up in front of the building (item 10); two photographs of a man in an automobile captioned "1910, Mr. Taber & demonstrating his patent wind-shield on Mr. S. Horace Anderson's 1908 Franklin" (items 14-15); views of inventor Joseph Fawke's "Aerial Swallow," an experimental, propeller-driven monorail which was built in Burbank in 1911 or 1912 (items 16-18); a 1918 commercial photograph of two men with a giant swordfish at Catalina Island (item 20); and two photographs of a Chutes amusement park water ride (also known as Washington Garden, at Washington and Grand in Los Angeles) (items 21-22). There are also some recreational group portraits as well as a studio portrait of S. Horace Anderson (Item 1), who also appears to be present in the group photograph taken in Hot Springs, Arkansas (Item 25).
photCL 121
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Manuscripts
The collection contains 54 single-item catalogued items housed in one legal-sized box. The majority of the collection consists of land-related items such as indentures (10), survey documents (5), and maps (3) all relating to property within the state of New Jersey. Other items include a document entitled "Articles of Agreement" (1791) regarding the distribution of John Hilliard's estate between his second wife, Frances Hilliard, and her step-son, Jonathan Hilliard, a "Bond and Warrant" from Evans R. Tomlinson, John Tomlinson's "Last Will and Testament," a marriage document pertaining to the marriage between John Tomlinson and Mary Fairlamb, fragments from possible correspondence, and an incomplete tax document from 1869.
HM 79040
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Manuscripts
Fascinating look at the inner workings of the San Francisco Municipal Railway during the 1920s and 1930s, with notices to trolley men and motormen, many relating to safety, such as this cautionary admonition on September 15, 1931, "From the nature of recent reports, it is evident that some of the motormen operating cars on the 'E' Line are not as attentive to business as they should be, and are thereby endangering the safety of the traveling public as well as others..." And on April 9, 1930, "There is altogether too much conversation being carried on with car crews by employees, both on and off duty." On May 13, 1935, "Foreign Objects on Rail" are addressed, noting that "Complaints are continually being received from residents along our lines that cars make an unusual noise caused by running over objects on car rails... Hereafter, motormen must be careful not to run over any obstruction...." On March 22, 1934, a sample of a U.S. Army Military Police badge is sent out, with the instruction that "Conductors will honor this star when presented for transportation...." Most of the bulletins are signed by Fred Boeken, Superintendent of Muni. There are also a few related letters amongst the bulletins.
mssHM 82389
645950