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Guide to the Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park Photographic Collection
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Title: Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park Photographic Collection
Dates: 1928-2012
Bulk Dates: 1970-1984, 1991, 2012
Collection number: Consult repository
Creator:
California State Parks
Collector:
California State Parks
Collection Size:
215 images
Repository:
Photographic Archives.
California State Parks
California State Parks
McClellan, CA 92262
Abstract: The Antelope Valley State Historic Park Photographic Collection contains 215 cataloged images that date from 1928 through
2012. Images depict the property as a tourist destination and as a state historic park.
Physical location: For current information on the physical location of these materials, please consult the Guide to the California State Parks
Photographic Archives, available online.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Collection is open for research by appointment.
Property rights reside with the repository. Copyrights are retained by the creators of the records. For permission to reproduce
or to publish, please contact the Head Curator of the California State Parks Photographic Archives.
[Identification of item including photographer and date when available], Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park
Photographic Collection, [Catalog number], California State Parks Photographic Archives, McClellan, California
Images donated by private parties and generated by California State Parks staff at various times.
Further accruals are expected.
Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park contains roughly 157 acres of natural, cultural, and historical resources.
Located in Los Angeles County, the park is bounded by the Tehachapi and San Gabriel mountain ranges in Antelope Valley and
is roughly 18 miles southeast of the city of Lancaster. The park is accessible by car via East Avenue “M.”
The area containing the present-day park was occupied by the Kitanemuk tribe, a Shoshone band, for 2,000 to 3,000 years before
Europeans arrived. The Kitanemuk people formed small settlements and used the area for hunting antelope, as a work site, and
as a travel route. The Spanish first encountered and traveled through the area in the late eighteenth century. Under Mexican
rule, the valley was used for seasonal sheep grazing and as an antelope hunting preserve. With the completion of the Southern
Pacific Railroad in 1876, American farmers and developers began entering—and altering—the desert region. Antelope Valley farmers
thrived for a period, growing wheat and grazing cattle before a 10-year drought and economic depression plagued the area in
1895. Although many farmers lost their properties and left the valley, those who stayed were soon rewarded. Construction of
the Los Angeles Aqueduct, crop diversification, the introduction of electricity, and the construction of a paved state freeway
after the turn of the twentieth century all helped Antelope Valley’s economic recovery.
In 1928, Howard Arden Edwards purchased 160 acres where the park currently resides. The next year, he began building his folk-vernacular
Swiss-chalet revival-style house against a rocky outcropping of Piute Butte’s southern slopes. Beyond scenery, Edwards wanted
a place to store and showcase his collection of Native American artifacts, to establish the Antelope Valley Indian Research
Museum, and to premiere his own Native-American-inspired artwork and theater pieces. Completing the house within five years,
Edwards soon began to suffer ill health. In 1938, he sold the house to fellow artifact-collector Mrs. Grace Marie Wilcox Fear.
Mrs. Fear grew the artifact collection and developed the facilities throughout the 1940s. She commissioned the construction
of cottages and a swimming pool to make the location more hospitable to visitors; she even hired Edwards back on as custodian
from 1944 to 1952. In 1979, Mrs. Fear (who had since been divorced, remarried to Joseph Oliver, and become Mrs. Grace Oliver)
sold the museum to the State of California in order that it—and its collection—might be better preserved as a state park unit.
In 2002, California State Parks classified the property a state historic park.
California State Parks, coordinating with the Friends of the Antelope Valley Indian Museum, maintains natural, cultural, and
historical resources at Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park. Set against towering Piute Butte and surrounded
by Joshua trees, Edwards’ idiosyncratic house museum serves as the park’s centerpiece and houses the collection of pottery,
baskets, food preparation and work tools, hunting and fishing equipment, clothing, textiles, paintings, and kachina dolls
of Southwest, California, and Great Basin tribes. Additionally interpreted are H. Arden Edwards and Grace Oliver themselves,
whose artifact collection, interpretation, and preservation methods—frowned upon today as amateurish and culturally insensitive—were
nonetheless emblematic of the attitudes held toward Native Americans and their objects in the first half of the twentieth
century. The park is only open on weekends except for prearranged group guided tours.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park Photographic Collection spans the years 1928-2012, with the bulk of
the collection covering the years 1970-1984, 1991, and 2012. There is a total of 215 cataloged images, including 83 photographic
prints, scans, and negatives, 70 35mm slides, and 62 born-digital images. Photographs originated primarily from California
State Parks staff.
The collection mainly documents the interior and exterior of the Antelope Valley Indian Museum building. Exterior imagery
depicts the building’s ornate, hand-painted detailing as well as surrounding dirt paths, Joshua trees, wagon wheels, historic
cottages, signage, fencing, a flag pole, a commemorative plaque, and Piute Butte. Interior imagery documents the artifact
collection and includes Native American whale bones, antelope hides, mortar, stone bowls, pottery, basketry, textiles, kachina
dolls, log benches, antlers, bows and arrows, interpretive panels, and H. Arden Edwards’ paintings and dioramas.
The collection also includes aerial views of the park unit. Features include the museum and cottage buildings, roads, trees,
dunes, and Piute Butte.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Antelope Valley (Calif.)
Archaeology--California.
California. Department of Parks and Recreation
Cultural resources
Edwards, H. Arden (Howard Arden), -1953
Kachina dolls
Los Angeles Aqueduct (Calif.)
Los Angeles County (Calif.)
Natural resources
San Gabriel Mountains (Calif.)
Shoshoni Indians
Tehachapi Mountains (Calif.)
Vernacular architecture--California.
Related Material at California State Parks
Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park Collection
Related Material at Other Repositories
Antelope Valley, Lancaster, Kern County Scrapbook, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County: Seaver Center for Western
History Research