Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Collection Description
Historical Background
Related Collections
Descriptive Summary
Title: Lucius Morris Beebe Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1921-1966
Collection number: MS 61
Creator:
Beebe, Lucius Morris, 1902-1966
Extent: 9 cartons
Repository:
California State Railroad Museum Library
Sacramento, California 95814
Shelf location: Big Four Building or off-site storage. Please contact
the Library in advance of your visit.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to the California State Railroad Museum. All requests for
permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Senior
Curator. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the CSRM as the owner of the
physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder,
which must also be obtained by the reader.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Lucius Morris Beebe Collection, MS 61, California State Railroad Museum Library, Sacramento, California.
Collection Description
Letters, manuscripts, galleys, clippings, ephemera, and biographical material relating to the newspaper society columnist,
publisher, and railroad historian Lucius Morris Beebe.
Historical Background
Lucius Beebe (December 9, 1902 Wakefield, Massachusetts - died February 4, 1966 Hillsborough, California) began his literary
career at the
New York Herald Tribune in 1929, achieved his own column in 1933, and went on to write articles for such periodicals as
Town & Country,
Gourmet,
Playboy,
Esquire,
Trains, and the
San Francisco Chronicle, to name a few. Beebe and Charles Clegg (1916-1979), his partner and co-author of half of his thirty-four books,
bought their first private car, "The Gold Coast," in the late 1940s. The two lived and traveled aboard "The Gold Coast" from
1948 to 1950; the car is now part of the collection of the California State Railroad Museum. They later purchased another
private car, "The Virginia City." They moved to Virginia City, Nevada in 1949, and in 1952 took over publishing and editing
the newspaper
The Territorial Enterprise, where Samuel Clemens had his roots. Beginning in 1960, they spent part of each year at their home in Hillsborough, south
of San Francisco, where Beebe died in 1966. His thirty-year career as an author, combined with his eccentric personality,
earned him an international reputation. Charles Clegg described Beebe as a "highly civilized nineteenth-century gentleman"
possessing an "outrageous personal majesty," known by the world as a "wit and flamboyant gourmet."
Related Collections
Upon Clegg's death in 1979, working files, photographs and selected works of art held by Beebe and Clegg were distributed
to various institutions, including: Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California Nevada Historical Society, Reno Colorado
Railroad Museum, Golden DeGolyer Collection, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas Denver Public Library New York Public
Library Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Most of the Beebe and Clegg negatives, literary and photographic rights are held by Charles Clegg's sister, Ann Holloway.
There is some Beebe family material held by the Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, 345 Main Street, Wakefield, Massachusetts 01880
(781) 246-6334.
Related collections at CSRM: MS 16, Gerald M. Best Papers, correspondence with Lucius Beebe. MS 34, Arthur Detmers Dubin Papers,
correspondence with Lucius Beebe. Photographic portrait file