Title:

Aerial photographs of the West

Creator/Contributor:

Rohlfs, Sterling, 1887-1928, creator

Creator/Contributor:

Springer, Lew Wallace, photographer.

Collection consists of two sets of views taken over California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. The first set, numbered 1-54, contains 49 images, with 5 missing. These images are of the Sierra Nevada (including Hetch Hetchy and the Tioga Pass, among other places), Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, mountains in Nevada, the Colorado River. the Grand Canyon and the El Tovar Hotel, the Roosevelt Dam in Arizona, ruins at Pecos, Fort Union, the Santa Fe Trail, and Wallace Springer's ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. The second set is numbered 1-69 (complete), and comprises the visual record of the fatal flight that ended in a crash near Toluca, Mexico, on March 27, 1928. This flight originated in Nogales, Arizona and its destination was Mexico City, with a purpose of assessing aerial postal service possibilities. In addition to numbered aerial photographs, one group portrait printed on postcard stock is included, picturing Rohlfs, Springer, and William E. King with others posed in front of their Fairchild airplane. This photograph was taken in Mazatlan on March 26th, one day before the crash. Locations depicted in this set include Arizona, San Xavier del Bac, San Diego and the US Navy fleet, the ruins of Fortress Ortiz, Hermosito, Guaymas, Mazatlan, Guadalajara(?), and Toluca. The last photograph was taken on March 27th, the day of the crash, suggesting that the camera and film must have been salvaged from the wreckage.

Date:

1928 (issued)

Subject:

n-us---

Aircraft accidents

Air travel -- West (U.S.) -- Photographs

Air travel

Aircraft accidents

West (U.S.) -- Photographs

Mexico -- Photographs

Southwest, New -- Photographs

Mexico

New Southwest

West United States

Title devised by cataloger.

Many images annotated: "Taken by L.W.S.", presumably Lew Wallace Springer, flying companion of Rohlfs.

Ms. identifications and numbering on backs of most, in ink.

From the estate of Sterling Rohlfs.

Purchase ; from Margolis & Moss ; 2005.

Sterling Rohlfs (1887-1928) was a test pilot and rancher, and the son of Charles Rohlfs and writer Anna Katharine Green. He managed the Bartlett Ranch in northern New Mexico.

Aerial photographs of the West, BANC PIC 2005.127, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Type:

graphic

Photographs.

Aerial photographs.

photoprint

117 photographs in 1 box : gelatin silver prints ; prints chiefly 12 x 18 cm (5 x 7 format)

English

Origin:

New Mexico