S. L. Walkley Photograph Albums

Two albums containing ninety-seven photographs, chiefly by amateur photographer S. L. Walkley, of buildings and landscapes in Los Angeles County and San Diego County, California, in 1888. These professional-quality views by Walkley depict newly constructed buildings, street scenes, and the natural landscape, including the flora. These volumes may have been Walkley's own albums as they contain photographs of the construction and finished exterior of his residence on St. John Street in Pasadena, California.

The albums include photographs of houses, hotels, streets, and buildings in Pasadena, California and the surrounding towns of Alhambra, San Gabriel, Whittier, and others as well as views of the Arroyo Seco, Little Santa Anita Canyon, Eaton Canyon, and the path to Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountain area. There are photographs of downtown Los Angeles; Hotel del Coronado and Old Town San Diego in San Diego County; and Avalon and Avalon Harbor on Santa Catalina Island. Several photographs show African American trainers with camels and elephants as well as an open circus wagon containing lions (volume 1, items 37-40) These scenes may be associated with the Sells Brothers Circus, which visited Los Angeles in October 1888 (See also volume 2, item 31). There is one photograph of a train labeled "Tia Juana & N.C. & O. Rwy. Train" (volume 1, item 30), presumably referring to the National City & Otay Railroad, a subsidiary of the Santa Fe Railroad, formed in 1886, which connected downtown San Diego with the Sweetwater Dam (San Diego County), La Presa (San Diego County), and Tijuana (Mexico). Two photographs bear the imprint of C.W. Herr and depict street scenes in Provo, Utah and Ogden, Utah (volume 1, items 35 and 36).

Many pictures include Walkley's name and a printed caption on the image as well as numbers between 4012 and 4147, presumably the photographer's negative number. Penciled identifications provided by a former Huntington staff member, Ed Carpenter, are included on many of the album pages.

Collection title devised by cataloger; date based on a handwritten note for volume 2 item 23, a photograph of Walkley's residence, which gives the date as October 31, 1888. 1888 was also the year that the Hotel del Coronado opened.