The Waterbury Paper Box Co. Wedding Album 1

I'm getting a backlog on photo albums, so I guess it's time to start another one.  I'll be following my usual practice.  Each post will be of a single album page, if there's more than one photo per page, I'll scan the page first, to show position, then each individual photograph.  If there's only one photo, I won't bother.

This album is too big to fit an entire page on the scanner.  Despite that limitation, I haven't had to break up any pages into sections.  Most of the photos in this album are 8x10 contact prints, so most of the album pages only have one photo. The majority of the pictures look like they're from the 1920s. but there are a few that aren't of that period.  Many of the photos have slight indentations around the edge of the print, indicating, that at one time they were in frames.  I suspect that this album was put together at a date well after all the photos were taken, which accounts for the mixed eras.  While some of the photos were glued to pages, most use photo corners.  A couple of pages don't have photos, but do have corners.  Weather those photos fell out, or were removed, I haven't a clue.  

There are enough pages in this album, that I won't be posting them one right after the other.  I'll post a few, move onto other things, then at some point in the future I'll put up a few more.  As far as the title of the album goes, as cheap Carny fortune tellers like to say, "In time, all will be revealed."  Really, the title of this album comes from a couple of prints near the end of the album, so be patient.  It is a virtue, as they say.

All posts will be tagged, Waterbury Box Co. Album in the labels section at the bottom of the post.  

Too Many Twins

One, two, three sets of twins.  Perhaps, one set of fraternal twins as well.  Let's hope that twins ran in this family, and there are a few cousins going on here.  I know there are women out there who are still having ten or more children, but the era of really big families seems to be fading.  It's just too expensive to raise large families these days, and most women want lives that go beyond full time, multi-decade child rearing.

It's Square Format Thursday!

Alright, to start with, there's no such thing as square format Thursday.  Fact is, after 1300+ posts, it's getting harder to think up good titles.

 My first thought, when I saw the old woman's head resting on the man's shoulder, was The Incredible Two Headed Bi-Gender Monster.  But after I scanned it into the computer and blew it up, I noticed her hand on his waist and figured they were probably a couple that had been together for fifty years, and that didn't seem so monstrous.   And that big, blown out, white blob in the second photo, well, I'm not sure, but I'm thinking a cake, so The Office Party seemed like a safe, though, boring title.  What to do?  Collecting old photos is easy, titles are hard.  Much like death and comedy.

One Big Happy Family

I don't know about other collectors of old photos, but I always have doubts about what I'm told by the people who sell them.  When I get a lot like this, I ask if all the photos are from the same source.   The dealers, of course, can intuit that I'm interested in buying images from the same family, so they tell me that, of course, all the same big family.  I know that sometimes they're telling me the truth.  I also know that sometimes they're just telling me what they know I want to hear.  I think I see a family resemblance, and at least one man who's in two photos, but that could be wishful thinking.

5 Drunk Girls

Probably not, but I like the title.

Views of California, Mt. Lowe Railway

I had to go all the way to South Dakota (via eBay) to get this classic southern California scene.

Alright, let's start with a bit of heavily edited history.  In  the late nineteenth century, Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. inventor, astronomer, balloonist, and businessman, thought it would be a grand idea to build a railroad into the San Gabriel Mountains, above Pasadena and Los Angeles.  A daft idea, but by 1893, he was open for business.

The Mt. Lowe Railway was actually three separate railways.  The Mountain Division started in the city of Altadena, and actually had stops for locals, just trying to get from one street to another.  Eventually, it entered Rubio Canyon, home to some rather scenic waterfalls that hikers can still visit.  After crossing the upper canyon on a bridge, it ended at Rubio Pavilion, a small 12 room hotel.

From there, the next leg was The Great Incline, a funicular railway that had inclines ranging from 48 to 62  degrees.  It ended at the top of Echo Mountain, and yet another hotel.  This one, an 80 room Victorian monstrosity.   There was also an astronomical observatory, the gear house for the funicular, and finally, a mega watt search light that could be seen fifty miles out to sea. The whole lot was dubbed, The White City.

 And finally, The Alpine Division, a mere 3.5 miles, that had 127 hairpin curves, and 18 bridges, ended at the foot of Mt. Lowe, and another hotel, the Ye Alpine Tavern, a 12 room Swiss style chalet.  Round trip, $5.00.

Things never really went well for Lowe's dream project.  The whole thing went into receivership within a few years, complicated by the fact that the good Professor built the whole thing on federal land without permission.  (The San Gabriel Mountains Forest Preserve, latter Angeles National Forest, and soon to be San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.) In 1905 the hotel on Echo Mountain burned to the ground,  in 1909, a flood wiped out The Rubio Pavilion, in 1928, a Santa Ana wind blew down the observatory, and in 1936,  the Ye Alpine Tavern, also burned down.  And finally, adding insult to injury, in 1938, a three day rain storm destroyed what was left.  To expensive to rebuild, in World War 2, a scrapper went along the route and pulled up what  was left of the tracks.  From 1959 to 1962, the Forest Service dynamited the foundations of all the buildings.

This card is post marked, "OCEAN PARK JAN 20 9:30 A.M, CAL."  And since this is from the era when postmarks were added at both ends of the process, "ESMOND FEB 8, A.M. 1908, S.DAK."  It was addressed to "P.G. Hanna, Esmond, S.D."  I looked up Esmond.  It's not even listed as a town, but as a populated place.  The map showed all of six streets.

Views of California, Catalina Island

I'm leaving the Views of the World Collection for awhile, but I am staying in California.  This card was published by The M. Rieder Company of Los Angeles.  M. Rieder was in business from 1901 to 1915.  Their cards printed in Germany.  There is a photo credit on this one.  C. Ironmonger.  Charles Frederick Ironmonger was born in Ohio in 1868, moved to L.A. in 1892 and went to work in the photo studio of Charles Betts Waite.  When Waite moved to Mexico, in 1895,  Ironmonger moved to Avalon on Catalina  and opened the first photo studio on the island.  His bread and butter was photos of fishermen with their catches, but he also took a number of landscapes, and photos of everyday island life.  He died in 1915. This card was post marked, "AVALON AUG 20 6:30 A.M. 1907 CALIF."  It was mailed to Mrs E. Behne, 799 Kohler St., Los Angeles, Calif."  The message on the front is faded, but we can make some of it out, "Dear Mama,  I am having a fine time in Catalina (something) and Anti and Mrs (someone and something) I went fishing today and caught (continued on the image-something, something) albacore."  More than likely Mama's son or daughter got home before this card was delivered.