Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Photograph album of Owens Valley
- Dates:
- 1905-1906
- Creators:
- Stowell, Nathan W. (Nathan William), b. 1851.
- Abstract:
- Album containing 28 gelatin silver photographs of Owens Valley and surrounding area, dated between July 1905 and February 1906.
- Extent:
- 1 album (28 photographic prints) : gelatin silver, 18 x 41 cm (album)
- Language:
- Finding aid is written in English. and Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Photograph album of Owens Valley (Collection 94/194). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The photographs capture panoramic vistas of mountains, canyons, lakes, reservoirs, and desert in and around Owens Valley, including the Alabama Hills running through the center of the valley, and the White Mountains north of Bishop; towns of Lone Pine, Independence, Cottonwood and Bishop; Owens Lake at the south end of the valley, as well as Long Lake, Little Lake, Lower Lake, Twin Lakes, and Emerald Lake, some of the 4000 lakes in the Sierra Nevada; and Cottonwood Canyon, south of Lake Tahoe. There is also a photo, dated August 1905, of the Shepherd Ranch House, built by homesteader John Shepherd in 1873, and supposedly the first 2-story frame dwelling in Owens Valley, located one-half mile west of Manzanar, between Lone Pine and Independence. Shepherd sold his ranch to land developer George Chaffey (and friend and business associate of Nathan Stowell) in 1905, the same year that Los Angeles announced that it was building an aqueduct to supply the city with water from the Owens Valley.
- Biographical / historical:
-
California engineer and land developer. Nathan W. Stowell was born in Claremont, New Hampshire in 1851, studied engineering as a young man, and moved to California in 1874 where he became involved with land development and irrigation projects, in Rialto, Corona, Ontario, East Whittier, and especially Cucamonga and the Imperial Valley. His business ventures included the Stowell Cement Pipe Company, the Cucamonga Fruit Land Company, the Cucamonga Land and Improvement Company, the Ontario Power Company, the Pacific Sewer Pipe Company, the California Development Company, and the Imperial Valley Water Company Number 1.
- Acquisition information:
- Formerly owned by Nathan William Stowell, and presented to the UCLA Library by Mrs. George Leslie Ellsworth in 1981.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.
- Physical facet:
-
Photographs are panoramic views, oriented horizontally (89 x 273 mm), and are mounted on rectos of leaves of heavy black paper, one to a page. Captions identifying location and date of each photograph are printed on slips of white paper affixed below photographs.
Bound in plain black paper covers; bound with faded gray silk ribbon threaded through four holes punched along left margin.
Spec. Coll. copy: in modern beige cloth clamshell box (21 x 43 cm), with box title "Owens Valley."
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Prepared:
- © 2013
- Date Encoded:
- Machine-readable finding aid derived from MARC record, encoding added via Notetab Pro. Date of source: 2013 . Supplementary encoding and revision by Caroline Cubé.
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Photograph album of Owens Valley (Collection 94/194). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988