The Old West lives on in photos
Daily Bulletin
Thursday, October 1, 1998
By David Seaton |
 |
| In a back room of the Museum of
History and Art in Ontario hang 40 crystal-clear images of the past: the
American West before dams, freeways, shopping malls and silicon.
The late 19th century photographs range from a sweeping look at a Yosemite
waterfall to an intimate portrait of ragtag miners collapsing after a day's
work.
| The photos, many of them without specific dates, recall a lost era of
handlebar mustaches, covered wagons and adobe houses, providing the perfect
antidote to today's speed-obsessed cyberworld, said Mari Ruiz, the museum's
registrar.
Other impressive images include the San Francisco Bay before the Golden Gate
Bridge, the first-ever photograph of Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and a town
meeting to eject illegal squatters in downtown Guthrie, Okla., circa 1890.
It's all inside the humble museum, at 225 S. Euclid Ave., which is playing
host to the exhibit, "Photography and the Old West," through Oct. 11. |
 This
photograph of Tosh-A-Way, a Comanche Chief, was
taken in 1868 by William S. The modern geletin from
silver paint was made from a vintage negative. It is part of the exhibit at the Museum of History and Art,
Ontario. |
Silvia Ramos and her daughter,
Samantha, 4, of Rancho Cucamonga
look at photographs of the Old West
in the Ontario museum. The exhibit
includes over 40 works by 15
photographers, with subjects
ranging from Native Americans
to miners landscapes.. |
The photographs themselvesare both old and new. The images are reprints from
negatives, stored in archives at universities and museums across the
country.
The photos document the geography and settlement of the West through the work
of 15 different photographers, including the well-known William Henry Jackson
and Carleton Watkins.
Early western photographers captured the vastness of the region, awing
Easterners with photos of the Rocky Mountains, which made the Appalachians look
puny, Ruiz said. |
Ruiz says she is struck by the quality of the photography at the time when the
unpolished medium was only a generation old.
| "It's amazing the detail you can see," she said.
Perusing the photos, Ruiz said she likes to think of the early photographer
on horseback, lugging his bulky equipment across uncut trails and setting up a
camera the size of a small television.
Many of the photographers were dispatched by the government or railroad
companies with surveying teams, Ruiz said.
To get people involved, the museum held a workshop for 20 amateur
photographers and sent them out to take pictures of Ontario's historic
buildings.
The pictures were matched with historical photographs of the same buildings
and hung as a collage.
The galleries are open from noon until 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
Admission is free. |
 Patrons leave the museum after a visit. The
exhibits runs through Oct 11. |
|
| |
|
