The American West 150 Years Ago

[Nick]

34 Fantastic photos of the American West 150 years ago. I am beyond amazed at the quality of these photos for being so old.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/05/the-american-west-150-years-ago/100304/

A sample. Click through for the rest.


A man sits in a wooden boat with a mast on the edge of the Colorado River in the Black Canyon, Mojave County, Arizona. At this time, photographer Timothy O'Sullivan was working as a military photographer, for Lt. George Montague Wheeler's U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian. Photo taken in 1871, from expedition camp 8, looking upstream. (Timothy O'Sullivan/Library of Congress)

 

[Joey]

I wonder if this inscription is still there? Anyone know?

Nearly 150 years ago, photographer O'Sullivan came across this evidence of a visitor to the West that preceded his own expedition by another 150 years -- A Spanish inscription from 1726. This close-up view of the inscription carved in the sandstone at Inscription Rock (El Morro National Monument), New Mexico reads, in English: "By this place passed Ensign Don Joseph de Payba Basconzelos, in the year in which he held the Council of the Kingdom at his expense, on the 18th of February, in the year 1726". (Timothy O'Sullivan/Library of Congress) #

 

[Nick]

http://midwestia.blogspot.com/2011/04/el-morro.html

 

[Laura]

Wow, those are amazing!

 

[Bob]

Time lost and forgotten ............ never to be the same.

 

[Yvonne]

wow, amazing pictures!!!

 

[Absarokanaut]

Thanks much for sharing these, they never get old.