Carton E. Watkins stereo card Allen Street Tombstone Arizona 1880
by David Lee Guss
Title
Carton E. Watkins stereo card Allen Street Tombstone Arizona 1880
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
This is Tombstone, Arizona's main street (Allen) in 1880, 27 years before John Wayne's birth (named Marion Michael Morrison) in Winterset, Iowa on May 26, 1907.
The glass plate negative used had such a slow speed that it failed to freeze movement, resulting in a blurred dark shape where a person had been standing.
San Francisco based Carlton E. Watkins (1829-1916) took this 1880 view on a stereo-card; the first extant photograph of "The Town Too Tough To Die."
The pioneer image maker masterfully crafted photos of the American West from the late 1850's to the mid 1890's when failing eyesight and other physical problems couldn't be overcome.
On March 20, 1880 the Southern Pacific Railroad came to Tucson. Watkins traveled to the city by train and then by stage to Tombstone, which didn't have rail service until April 1903.
Watkins lost his studio and his life time accumulation of negatives in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
Those interested can see his work here.
http://www.carletonwatkins.org/index.php?v=list&c=25
Type in Tombstone in the search box (on the top right) to see the unadorned, sepia toned original with mirror halves of this image.
@2009 David Lee Guss Film homage, Carton E. Watkins, stereo card, Allen Street, Tombstone, AZ, 1880-2009
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April 25th, 2013
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