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Mount Lowe, California, circa 1913. "Ye Alpine Tavern on Mount Lowe Railway line." Our second look at this mile-high Swiss-style chalet that was the end of the line for passengers of the Mount Lowe scenic railway. As we saw in the video clip accompanying the previous post, excursionists got a spectacular ride for their fare (which in the railway's opening year of 1893 was a hefty $5). 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size | Continue reading
Postscript: There's at least one other high-resolution view of the railway in the Library of Congress archive, for a total of three images, and there could be more to come. Although they were taken a century ago, they are in effect "new," having been digitized in April 2010 and put online in the past few weeks or months. Up until recent years or months most of these Detroit Publishing images have been effectively invisible for the better part of a century, existing only as negatives or as colored postcard views, which are something like low-resolution cartoons. Large-format prints, which were part of the Detroit Publishing business, have not survived in large numbers or were never made in the first place. It's only now, for the first time, that people are able to experience these views in the great detail afforded by the 8x10 inch glass negative format, thanks to digital technology, which lets us get a positive image of the negative without making a photographic print on paper in the darkroom, which is where a lot of detail gets lost. So the view you see on your video display right now on Shorpy is, for many if not most of these images, their much-delayed mass-audience high-definition premiere.
At the base of the mountain sat Mount Lowe military Academy, where my father was a cadet in the 1940s. On their alumni website, a classmate has left this photo of the ruins.
The hike along this route is one of my favorite in the L.A. area. There are signposts along the route giving a little history of the railway. The cuts through the granite as seen in the video clip are of course still there (minus the rail tracks) and look very familiar. It's a tough but rewarding hike that's quite accessible. The tavern would be a very welcoming stop if it was still there although my hike would probably end at that point (hic).
All this and a Bell Telephone! Would there be anything BUT "long distance" from this outpost?
It is SO gratifying to see these hi-res pictures. I've been fascinated by the Mount Lowe Railway for most of my life, but as noted, prior published pictures lacked detail.
Surprising how modern this building looks, but then we've been seeing echoes of its design for the past hundred years. There's a timelessness to those tapered columns, the wall of glass and the strong horizontals of the deck.Good design doesn't go out of style -- that's why we still see Art & Crafts and Mission styles in our furniture, and some of us still build similar designs.
Steve "Old Dusty" Miller
Someplace near the crossroads of America
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