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Robbins-Mills Collection of Herbert Wendell Gleason Photographic Negatives, 1899-1937 Concord Free Public Library — Special Collections |
Series X – California, 1907-1920
Series X (522 glass, 66 film) is organized into five subseries: Towns, Redlands, El Camino Real, Catalina Island, and Natural Features. Subseries Towns is arranged alphabetically by town and by date within each town. Remaining subseries are arranged by date. Towns include: Berkeley, Dunsmuir, Eureka, Millwood (a ghost town), Monterey (including Del Monte), Pacific Grove, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Shasta Springs. The series includes panoramic views of Mt. Tamalpais from Berkeley, the city of San Francisco including San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz Island from Buena Vista Hill, Green St. Hill, Greenwich Terrace, Lombard St. Hill, and Washington St. Hill, the Monterey coast along the 17-mile Cypress Drive, Catalina Island's Avalon Bay, and the canyons and desert of Redlands from Mt. Greyback.
Houses and buildings include: structures in Monterey (old U.S. Customs House, old Whaling House, Cotton Hall, First U.S. Consuls House and former headquarters of General W.T. Sherman) and in Santa Barbara (Casa de la Guerra, Herter Place and Neighborhood House). Hotels and resorts include Del Monte Hotel (Monterey), Forest Home, a 200-acre mountain resort near the head of Mill Creek Canyon (Redlands), St. Francis Hotel (San Francisco), Hotel Potter (Santa Barbara), Banning's Place (Catalina Island), and Paso Robles Hotel (Paso Robles).
Numerous images of Redlands include shots of Smiley Heights, the popular name for Canon Crest Park built by Albert K. and Alfred H. Smiley in the 1890s. Gleason photographed many of California's trees including giant sequoias, coastal redwoods, conifers (royal sugar pine and yellow pine), live oaks, Monterey cypresses, and Torrey pine. Included in the El Camino Real (Royal Highway) images are many shots of the Spanish Missions (some in ruins): Carmel Mission, Dolores Mission, La Purisima Concepcion, San Antonio de Padua, San Buena Ventura, San Carlos, San Diego, San Fernando, San Gabriel, San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Obispo, San Miguel, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and Santa Ynez. Highlights include architectural features, gardens, Serra Monument, Serra Tablet, and ruins of the room at Carmel Mission where Father Serra died.
Portraits of individuals include Bradford Torrey (ornithologist, naturalist, and editor of Thoreau's writings), Miss Ruth Smiley, Daniel Smiley, Mrs. Daniel Smiley, Mrs. Carroll B. Smith, Mrs. Charles E. Ide, Miss Kate Sanborn, and several shots of Gleason. Copies from other works include photographs by conservationist Walter L. Huber of scenes along the John Muir Trail. Other images in this series include a shipwreck off the coast of Monterey, the world's first offshore oil wells in Summerland, and Shasta Springs, the most famous of the resorts located in the upper Sacramento River Canyon where Southern Pacific trains would stop so passengers could drink the natural spring water. The series includes one Nevada image of Heather Lake, which was published in The Western Wilderness of North America.