History of the West in photos

[AZLumberjack]

This morning I was going through some forum listings in a photographic website and came across this link.

Thought it is interesting enough to share with the HAZ community as there are several photos of the Arizona territories from the 1870's era.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1vtjUGcOP

It amazes me that in the 1870's O'Sullivan could come up with such detailed photos while exploring a hostile new part of America's West. To have experienced so much and yet he died at age 42.

[Trishness]

Amazing photos Jack. Thanks for sharing those.

TT

[ASUAviator]

That was awesome. Love old photos, thanks

[JimmyLyding]

Thank you for sharing. Your link was of interest to me because I'm currently reading the book 'A River Running West: The LIfe of John Wesley Powell' by Donald Worster, and it's a great read so far. It's certainly more about Powell's life than his first, epic trip through down the Colorado, and worth picking up. Powell's early explorations of the Colorado River region were around the time of O'Sullivan's work so this caught my eye. Great stuff.

[Canyonram]

Thanks for the link. Enjoy the old photos. NAU has an online archive of old photos:

http://archive.library.nau.edu/index.php

Cool to see familar places as they were 100+ years ago.

[rwstorm]

I think most places look better now than they did 100 years ago.

[Sredfield]

Thanks for the link. Enjoy the old photos. NAU has an online archive of old photos:

http://archive.library.nau.edu/index.php

Cool to see familar places as they were 100+ years ago.

Well, thanks for this post, I think. I just spent the last 4 hours on it and searching for the locations of some of the pics, the ones about the "Bucklar" ranch headquarters of the CO Bar-Babbit Ranches-in particular. Earl Forrest (author of Arizona's Dark and Bloody Ground) took some photos there in the 1920's. This location is on the west flank of Humphreys, at "the head of Hart Prairie." Having spent some time there at the TNC preserve, I have never heard of the Bucklar Ranch, and neither the current nor the archived (back to 1939) USGS topos show anything. Best I can guess, it's in the vicinity of Lew Tank or Bismark Lake, but that's just a SWAG. A couple hours on Google, and paging thru Marshall Trimble's book "CO Bar" which mentions it but doesn't give enough detail to pinpoint the location, and I'm not much closer.

Mack Hughes' memoirs, "A Hashkife Cowboy" by Stella Hughes, contains passing mention of spending a summer at Hart Prairie, and he worked for the CO Bar, so there is high possibility that he was at the Bucklar Ranch. He mentions a flowing stream, of which there are now none in this area but there are some interesting possibilities where there might have been flowing water.

What a goose chase!

[AZLumberjack]

I think most places look better now than they did 100 years ago.

Are you crazy?????? All the junk, litter, graffiti and what-not scattered throughout the once pristine wilderness..... give me the good old days.

[AZLumberjack]

@Canyonram
Another good link with lots of historic photos. Thanks Canyonram

[azbackpackr]

Thank you for sharing. Your link was of interest to me because I'm currently reading the book 'A River Running West: The LIfe of John Wesley Powell' by Donald Worster, and it's a great read so far. It's certainly more about Powell's life than his first, epic trip through down the Colorado, and worth picking up. Powell's early explorations of the Colorado River region were around the time of O'Sullivan's work so this caught my eye. Great stuff.

Does it detail what a big exaggerater and liar he was, and the fact he never paid his boatmen? Powell was a force to be considered, but he was so self-serving (as was also John C. Fremont) that one has to question just about everything he ever said he did. I can't stand the man, myself.

Read First Through Grand Canyon, by Tom Myers and Michael Ghiglieri, next book you read. It will provide the PERFECT contrast.

[Canyonram]

Sredfield: Use the "Advanced Search' function at the NAU photo archive. Here's the one photo they have in the catalog of the Bucklar Ranch on Hart Prairie:
http://archive.library.nau.edu/cdm4/ite ... OX=1&REC=1

Gee Azbackpackr. Did you recently back into a chollo? On a separate post you were angry with some hikers who regretted the damage done by recent forest fires and now you rail against John Wesley Powell. You realize that if Powell had his way the 'Indian method' of forest management (including fires to keep the understory burned back) would have been policy. Instead he was overruled by others who didn't believe the Native Americans had a better method to manage the forest.

http://www.cabnr.unr.edu/swanson/Fairfa ... rfax_2.htm
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/biblio_indianfire.htm

You stated that you 'can't stand the man.' While I am plenty old, I never had the pleasure to meet him to draw that same opinion. Perhaps you can author a separate thread "John Wesley Powell was a no-good Liar and Thief" and keep this current topic 'History of the West in photos' on track?