Mar 10, 2020 - Sale 2533

Sale 2533 - Lot 214

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
(SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING.) Photograph album of early dam construction. 238 photographs, various sizes, mounted on 49 scrapbook leaves. Large oblong 4to, 10 x 12 inches, original limp cloth, moderate wear; contents generally well-preserved. Vp, 1909 and undated

Additional Details

Most of this uncredited photograph album is devoted to dam construction, with at least the early part of the volume believed to show the construction of Relief Dam in Tuolumne County, CA, completed in 1910. It includes more than the usual number of shots of construction laborers. One credited photograph by Gross of nearby Sonora, CA shows 17 workers on a crude funicular railway. The album was apparently compiled personally by one of the engineers on the project. Also included are quite a few family and tourist photographs (one section shows the Mission San Juan Capistrano in August 1909) as well as Real Photo postcards from Oregon, British Columbia and beyond.