The Huntington acquires 4,600 rare, old photographs of Southern California

E.G. Morrison (ca. 1827–1888), Roller Coaster at the Arcadia Hotel, Santa Monica, late 1880s.
Albumen print, Ernest Marquez Collection. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

A California Long Gone

• The Huntington Library has preserved so much history of an early California that no longer exists.
• Not everything is "progress".  The once Golden State of California has gone from lightly populated small towns and rolling green hills to a "modern" society that is basically one massive asphalt jungle of wall-to-wall people, smog and traffic jams.

(Los Angeles Daily News)  -  Modern technology’s sepia filtered snapshots cannot compare to the treasure trove of original photographs The Huntington recently purchased from a man whose forefathers arrived in California with Father Junipero Serra.

Ernest Marquez, 89, said his 4,600-photo collection began as a hobby more than 50 years ago when he became interested in learning about his ancestral history.

“During the process of going to antique stores and sales and all that, I kept running into old photographs of Santa Monica and Los Angeles, and I kept picking them up,” said Marquez, from West Hills. “At that time, I could get them for $1 or $1.50. I started collecting original photographs of all the beach towns in Southern California.”

The Ernest Marquez Collection is the most expensive photograph purchase The Huntington had made since the time of Henry Huntington, who died in 1927, said Jennifer Watts, curator of photographs.
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Its prints — from the 1870s to the 1950s — lay out Santa Monica’s transformation from a small, rustic village to a symbol of “The Golden State.”

North Santa Monica Beach, ca. 1880s. Albumen print, Ernest Marquez Collection.
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

North Santa Monica Beach, ca. 1880s. Albumen print, Ernest Marquez Collection.
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Although the newly purchased photos primarily focus on the landscape, topography and buildings of Santa Monica and Los Angeles, the Ernest Marquez Collection also speaks to the history and development of Southern California from Santa Barbara all the way to San Diego, Watts said.

It fills a gap in The Huntington’s photographic holdings and includes elusive images by some of the region’s earliest photographers: William Godfrey, Francis Parker, Hayward & Muzzall and Carleton Watkins.

Marquez recalled a memorable photograph taken by Watkins, a highly acclaimed early western photographer.

“It was taken of the city where there’s only one building standing on the cliff,” Marquez said. “Santa Monica in 1875 was just starting. There was nothing there.”

Watts said she hasn’t had a chance to look at all the of images but some of her favorites have to do with the beginnings of California, the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad. She enjoyed seeing the beginning of the tourist trade, where people sunbathed in front of shacks, she said.

Watts declined to talk about the price tag of the Ernest Marquez Collection but said it would take more than a year to pay off even though its Library Collectors’ Council also helped fund the buy.

Marquez said some of the photos that he purchased for $1 or $2 are probably worth about $300 today.
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The photos adds to the Huntington’s strengths as a collections-based research and educational institution, David Zeidberg, Avery Director of the Library at The Huntington, said in a press release.
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Marquez said he will be sad to part with his photos next week but knows The Huntington is a good new home for a life-long hobby he kept from his wife for years.

“I’m extremely happy that it’s going to a place where it’ll be preserved and protected and where it will be useful for scholars and people interested in California history,” he said. “It’s a safe place for them that I can’t provide anymore because I’m getting to the age where I can’t take care of them like I should.”

The Huntington still needs to catalog the large collection, but Watts said she expects some prints will be available in its digital library by summertime. For now, people could see a huge chunk of the photos in Marquez’s book: “Santa Monica Beach: A Collector’s Pictorial History.”

Southern Pacific Railroad entering Santa Monica, 1878.

Carleton Watkins (1829–1916), Beach and Bathing House at Santa Monica, ca. 1877. Albumen print,   Ernest Marquez Collection. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Carleton Watkins (1829–1916), Santa Monica Hotel, ca. 1877. Albumen stereograph, Ernest Marquez Collection. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.