Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Visual Materials
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
![[Pacific Mail Steamship Company Dock, Coal Yard, Marine Hospital, San Francisco]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Frail.huntington.org%2FIIIF3%2FImage%2F22APN4JMB35J%2Ffull%2F%5E360%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg&w=750&q=75)
Visual Materials
[Watkins no. 612] Watkins' photography wagon is seen in lower left. Signs can be seen for bars and grocery stores. Many ships are docked at shore. St. Mary's Hospital on Rincon Hill is at left center, and in the distance, the U.S. Marine Hospital on Rincon Point.
photCL Watkins 95
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Visual Materials
[Watkins no. 613] View looking down at warehouses, other structures, and ships at wharf. Signs on buildings read: "PMSS Co. New York via Panama" and "PMSS Co. China via Japan" and "Oriental U.S. Bonded Warehouse. Howard & Pool."
(photCL Watkins 94)
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Visual Materials
[Watkins no. 613] Same image as photCL Watkins 94. Variant copy.
(photCL Watkins 94a)
![[Pacific Mail Steamship Company Wharf, San Francisco]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Frail.huntington.org%2FIIIF3%2FImage%2F22APN4JMBI6N%2Ffull%2F%5E360%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg&w=750&q=75)
Visual Materials
[Watkins no. 613] View looking down at warehouses, other structures, and ships at wharf. Signs on buildings read: "PMSS Co. New York via Panama" and "PMSS Co. China via Japan" and "Oriental U.S. Bonded Warehouse. Howard & Pool."
photCL Watkins 94
Image not available
Visual Materials
This is a collection of 61 mammoth plate photographs by Carleton Watkins made 1861-1880 in the American West, primarily California and Nevada. The subject matter is varied and includes mining views in the Comstock district, Nevada; Yosemite Valley; Los Angeles County ranches and agriculture; San Francisco's maritime commerce and stately residences; Salt Lake City, Utah; and assorted landscape and coastal views. These photographs were acquired by the Huntington Library over several decades from different sources. One of the largest series of photographs depicts mining companies and mills in the Comstock district, Nevada in 1876, when the region was in its greatest "bonanza" period. The landscape photographs depict the mine's wooden buildings and mills set in canyons and along rivers, and include piles of wood, some equipment, and occasionally employees and their families. Watkins traveled on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad to reach some sites, and railroad tracks are visible in some views. The mining sites pictured are: Mexican Mill, Merrimac Mill, Brunswick Mill, Vivian Mill, Santiago Mill, Eureka Mill, Franklin Mill, Windfield Mining Company, Land Mining Company, Empire State Mining Company, and Pacific Mining Company. A series of 20 views of Yosemite Valley, made by Watkins in 1861 and 1865-66, feature waterfalls, granite walls and cliffs, rivers and other scenery. Three views were made in the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees, where naturalist Galen Clark lived in a cabin, seen in "Galen's Hospice" (item 50). Clark is also pictured in front of the "Grizzly Giant" sequoia in 1861, and on a bridge over the Merced River. Photographs in Los Angeles County depict ranches, orchards and agriculture in Pasadena and other parts of the San Gabriel Valley. Besides individual residences (see contents list for names of owners), views include: a small community of houses in Pasadena called the Indiana Colony; the "Twin Palms" in San Gabriel; Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel (built 1869); and the Sierra Madre Villa hotel at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. In San Francisco, there are three city views of houses in elite neighborhoods, taken 1862-1867. Two of these photographs, the "Milton S. Latham Residence, Folsom Street" (item 97) and the "Coe-Raymond-Earle Residence, Rincon Hill" (item 98), were undiscovered at the time of publishing the catalog raisonne (see Sources). The third photograph, "Residences of Mr. Robinson and Rev. W. A. Scott, Rincon Hill" (item 96), is only known to exist in one other copy (Naef catalog: no. 340). There are also three views of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company warehouse buildings and wharf, with ships seen at dock and in the bay. The views include St. Mary's Hospital on Rincon Hill, and a distant view of the U.S. Marine Hospital. The remaining photographs in the collection are: coastal views of Mendocino County and the Farallon Islands; landscapes of the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington; a bird's-eye-view of Salt Lake City and the Mormon Tabernacle; and rock formations in "Echo City from Witch Rocks, Utah." The prints are all individually mounted and vary slightly in size, approximately 15 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches. Some are signed and numbered in ink on the mount below the photograph, and some have titles and numbers written in pencil in what appears to be Watkins' hand.
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Visual Materials
This collection contains 430 albumen photographs by photographer Carleton E. Watkins that chiefly depict buildings, points of interest, and locales in Northern and Southern California in the 1870s and 1880s, as well as 223 card photographs by photographer Alfred A. Hart documenting the construction of the western half of the transcontinental railroad by the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) in the 1860s, which were later published by Watkins under his own imprint. Images by Watkins depict locations in Arizona and California including: Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, the Mammoth Tree Grove, Paso Robles, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Gabriel, San Luis Obispo, San Pedro, Santa Monica, Soda Springs, Wilmington, and Yosemite, as well as views related to the Southern Pacific Railroad and of the Colorado River. There are a few images of Native Americans in Arizona and California, and several images related to trains and railroads. The photographs have been removed from the original album, which is a large leather album with brass bindings (Box 10). There are some handwritten identifications in the album pages, most likely written after if was received by the Library.
photCL 74
photCL Watkins 39-98