Oblong Quarto album (13,2x20,9 cm). 50 paper album leaves (two blank). With ca. 227 mounted original gelatin silver photographs from ca. 8,4x8,4 cm (3 ¼ x 3 ¼ in) to 2,5x3,6 cm (1 x 1 ½ in). No captions. Period brown cloth album fastened with a string; gilt-tooled generic title “Photographs” on the front cover. Edges worn, mild silvering of the photos, but overall a very good album, with strong, interesting photos.

Interesting collection of 227 lively original photos of California, likely taken by a local male resident during leisure outings with family and friends, including early views of San Francisco, San Bruno, Santa Cruz, and Dixon.

About forty identified photographs show California landmarks, with ca. ten rare images of Fort Bragg, a former lumber hub in Mendocino County. Fort Bragg, established in 1857 as a military garrison, was soon transformed into a logging town with the support of the Union Lumber Company (est. in 1891). In its prime, Fort Bragg was a business center and the primary supplier of lumber for San Francisco’s post-1906 earthquake reconstruction. By the 1960s, as accessible timber dwindled, the town gradually shifted toward tourism. The early, well-executed views of Fort Bragg show the Union Lumber Company’s lumber mill, logging operations, water tower, log ponds, and a nearby lake.

The other photos from the “landmark” series, document the now-demolished Newton J. Tharp Commercial School (1908–1952) in San Francisco, the Tanforan Racetrack (1899–1964) in San Bruno, the Sather Tower (built in 1914) at the University of California, Berkeley, the Second Grammar School in Dixon (built in 1911, demolished in 1958), and California’s oldest surviving amusement park, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (established in 1907). There are also about ten photographs of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, featuring the now-lost Service Building, Tower of Jewels, Court of the Universe, and Court of Abundance.

The album also contains lively images of significant historical moments in California, including the 1908 explosion at the Standard Oil Company in Riverside, one of the first airplane flights in Northern California, and one of the state’s earliest automobile races at Tanforan Park in 1910.

The other interesting photos include private photographs of the travelers (posing by cars, picnicking, fishing, horseback riding), images of Silver Lake with cottages and camps, topographers at work with alidade and plane tables, steam trains, railway tracks, tunnels, rugby matches at Stanford, and a graduation ceremony at Stockton High School.

Overall, historically interesting extensive album with rare, early views of California.