Oblong Quarto album (ca. 18,3x28,9 cm). 50 card stock leaves (one blank). With 286 mounted and loosely inserted (fourteen) original gelatin silver photographs (including one real photo postcard) from ca. 8x12,4 cm (3x5 in) to ca. 2,6x3,8 cm (1x1 ½ in). No captions. Period black full-leather album fastened with a string; with a gilt-lettered generic title “Photographs” on the front board. Two pages detached, photos with mild-silvering, but overall a very good album with strong, interesting photos.

Historically interesting collection of original gelatin silver photographs taken during a 1915 cross-border trip, with interesting photos of railway tracks, stations, and locomotives in the American West, Mexico, and British Columbia.

According to the identified photographs, the compiler and his family began their journey by train to Pike’s Peak, then continued through Arizona and New Mexico, crossed into Mexico for the Tijuana Fair, and traveled north through California and Seattle before ending in British Columbia.

The album opens with over twenty vibrant photos documenting the travelers’ railway ascent to Pikes Peak. The images show stunning mountain vistas, cheerful compiler and his companions posing at the summit, and railway tracks cutting through the landscape. Especially interesting is the photo of a steam locomotive closely resembling the iconic Pikes Peak Cog Railway train. The photographs likely trace the early railway route that began at the depot in Manitou Springs (elevation 6,320 feet / 1,930 m) and climbed 8.9 miles (14.3 km) to the summit of Pikes Peak.

Forty rare, well-executed photos of New Mexico include views of the old Isleta Depot and the Albuquerque train station, with a steam locomotive pulling into the shot. There are also about ten lively, vernacular portraits of Native American men and children in traditional attire, a pueblo man in a patterned blanket offering handmade goods to a passenger, and children running after the train.

Another interesting section features ca. ten candid images from the Tijuana Fair in Mexico, June 1915. The scenes depict cheerful travelers posing beside donkeys and a costumed dwarf, festive animal spectacles, etc.

The other photos mostly document the group’s broader journey through the American West, including snapshots from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Grand Canyon, the Chanticleer Hotel in the Columbia Gorge, Pioneer Square in Seattle (with clearly visible totem pole, the sign “Olympic Hotel,” trains & cars), railway stations and tracks of unknown locations, etc.

The album likely closes with over twenty photos of British Columbia, showing the original building of the iconic Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, railway stations and locomotives, and striking scenic landscapes.

Overall, historically interesting collection of 286 original gelatin silver photographs taken during an early railway trip through the American West, Mexico, and British Columbia.