Jun 21, 2016 - Sale 2420

Sale 2420 - Lot 4

Price Realized: $ 1,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(ALASKA.) Archive of photographs and other papers from territorial official Robert J. Sommers. 27 items in one box, plus one large frame; various conditions. Vp, circa 1921-72
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Additional Details

Robert J. Sommers (1881-1972), a Minnesota native, came to Alaska in 1900 and was appointed in 1919 as the territory's surveyor general and ex officio secretary. He later served as the territorial highway engineer and then formed his own construction company.
In May and June of 1928, Sommers accompanied Governor George A. Parks on an exhaustive tour of Alaska by ship, train, car, and airplane. This collection includes a photograph album of the tour, filled with 91 photographs of Alaskan scenes and people (most about 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches). Also included are a map and itinerary. The photographs show logging, mining, servicing a plane on a primitive baseball field in Nenana, a traditional umiak boat, cannery, glaciers, the midnight sun, mammoth bones, and more, each with typescript captions.
Also included in the collection are 7 framed photographs, including one signed by Governor Parks, one of the Sommers Construction Company in Nome, and attractive views of Sitka and the Taku Glacier Membership certificate in the Roosevelt Memorial Association 8 small unmounted family photographs 10 newspaper clippings relating to his career, including an obituary and a worn leather folder with his initials.