JW Bledsoe, California Photographer

Late 19th and Early 20th Century Photography of the California Wilderness

Category: Mountains and Hills

Relationship between snow melt in the Sierra Nevada and irrigation of cropland.

Summer Scene in the Sierras Back of Reedley, Vinyard Scene near Reedley

Summer Scene in the Sierras Back of Reedley, and Vinyard Scene near Reedley

Diptych image showing water storage in the Sierra Nevada and its role in supplying water to agriculture. Captions read: “Summer scene in the Sierras back of Reedley, showing a part of the water shed of Kings River and the storage of water in the form of snow which, gradually melting, furnishes the water for irrigating a half a million acres in the great San Joaquin Valley,” and; “Vineyard scene near Reedley, showing what the water which falls in the lofty Sierras does when it reaches the plain, transforming a desert into a garden. Photo taken near the High School Building at Reedley.”

Text on photographs reads: “Kaweah [landscape?] Sierra Nevada Range looking East from Alta Meadows. Sequoia National Park as seen July 1, 1907. Copyright J.W. Bledsoe Photo,” and “Smith Ferry Sight, Kings River, Calif., copyright ’07 J.W. Bledsoe Photo.” 

Thanks to Ken Zech I was already familiar with the Smith Ferry image, but I have not seen the Kaweah panorama before. It would be wonderful to find the original! I suspect that this diptych might have been produced for the L.A. Aqueduct project, but have no direct evidence of that.

Photographs by J. W. Bledsoe

Upper photo dated July 1, 1907, lower photo also dated to 1907, but day is not given.

Courtesy Reedley Historical Society, Reedley, California

Original diptych of Sierra and Kings River

Original diptych of Sierra and Kings River

Mountain Scene Alone

Mountain Scene Alone

 

Mt. Whitney

Mount Whitney, California from the Inyo Mountains near Lone Pine, 1913.

Mount Whitney, California, 1913.

Mount Whitney, California, 1913.

Labeled “Mt. Whitney Elev. 14502 Ft” and “Cop’R. 1913 by Bledsoe Photo Co. L.A. CA”.

Photograph by J. W. Bledsoe

Thanks to David Weaver for the scan.

DSC_6974ed

 

DSC_6973-ed

Construction of Los Angeles Aqueduct, ca. 1915

View of construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, ca. 1910-1920.

View of construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, ca. 1910-1920.

This is part of the collection of the Los Angeles Department of Water and  Power, which has the single largest collection of Bledsoe’s work that I have seen. Their collection is now held by the California Historical Society, and is archived, curated, and conserved by the University of Southern California library. It shows the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The original images were on 6×8 glass plates, but these are rarely handled, and most images (including this one) have been scanned from internegatives or prints and have lost image quality along the way.

This is the library’s description of the image: Photograph of a view of construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, showing a wooden track, ca.1910-1920. A large, riveted pipe, supported by concrete blocks, runs from the left foreground to the hill that sits at the center background. A wooden track runs along the ground, parallel to the pipe. In the center of the image, two men lean on a cart that rests on the track. A metal apparatus with cables extending from the top, apparently used to hoist beams, sits to the right of the track. Hills are visible in the distance.

Photograph by J.W. Bledsoe

From the California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15799coll65/id/3551/rec/6

Arrowhead Springs 1915

scan638 Lake Arrowhead Hotel Bledsoe 1915

 

Arrowhead Springs Hotel, 1915, by JW Bledsoe.  The “arrowhead” landslide for which the region is named is easily visible on the upper left side of the image. This is Arrowhead Springs Hotel #3, it was destroyed by wildfire in 1938 and replaced in 1939 (the 1939 version survives to the present, but is abandoned).

More information on the Hotel is here: https://www.ci.san-bernardino.ca.us/about/history/arrowhead_springs_hotels.asp

And here: http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/hotels-arrowhead-112008

Image courtesy Jim Smart at CSUSB, from an 8×10 negative.

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