Location Update: We are on West Main Street in Alhambra.

A found Kodachrome slide of a Southern California street scene, possibly Alhambra or Pasadena, going by the address labels on other boxes in this collection. "1956" is written on the box cover. View full size.

Circa 1896. "Mercer, Washington baseball." George Barclay "Win" Mercer (1874-1903). Glass negative from the C.M. Bell portrait studio. View full size.

MERCER'S TRAGIC END

Ball Player, 28, Takes Own Life in San Francisco.

        SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 13 -- Winnie D. Mercer, a pitcher for the American baseball team, registered at the Occidental Hotel last evening and was found asphyxiated in his room to-day. Mercer was registered under the name of George Murray and gave his residence as Philadelphia. The watchman of the hotel in making his rounds detected the odor of gas coming from Mercer's room, and, failing to receive a response to his knocking, broke down the door. Clad in his night clothes and lying in the bed with his coat and vest covering his head, Mercer was found. From the gas jet in the center of the room was suspended a rubber tube, and the end of this Mercer had placed in his mouth, after turning the gas full on.

        Mercer's identity was established by papers found among his effects, one of which read: "Tell Mr. Van Horn, of the Langham Hotel, that Winnie Mercer has taken his life." He also left letters, one to his mother and another to a young lady of East Liverpool, Ohio, expressing regret over his deed and bidding them fond farewells. He left a statement of his financial accounts addressed to Tip O'Neill, and advised his friends to avoid games of chance and women.

-- Washington Post, January 14, 1903.

        During the week of July 21-27, 1921, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone camped at a site about six miles east of Hancock in Washington County, Maryland. During the weekend, President Warren G. Harding joined the “vagabonds” — the name the wealthy industrialists gave themselves when they camped together. The 200-acre farm where they made camp was located about one mile north of the National Turnpike along Licking Creek. Today, the campsite lies inside Camp Harding County Park. A plaque memorializes the gathering of these famous campers.

-- Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources

July 1921. "Warren Harding at Firestone camp." The president with industrialist Harvey Firestone and the inventor Thomas Edison (napping). Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

"Sally in garden -- 18 Sept 1951." From Blue Earth, Minnesota, our latest Kodachrome by Grace or Hubert Tuttle. View full size.

From the Library of Congress archive comes this orphan image, circa 1953, with no caption or other identifying information. What could this young man who looks like one of Captain Video's ranger cadets be up to? View full size.

April 1942. "Hollywood, California. Sign and ticket window of a large dance palace." The Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Boulevard. Medium format nitrate negative by Russell Lee for the Office of War Information. View full size.

        ROCHESTER, Sept. 13 — Rochester’s new hotel, the Seneca, will be opened tomorrow in time for the State Democratic Convention, which meets here Tuesday. The hostelry in size will compare with the Hotel Astor in New York. Its architecture is in a general way French Renaissance. It is constructed of brick of brownish hue, trimmed with gray terra-cotta.

        The hotel has a frontage of 130 feet on Clinton Avenue, and is only a couple of blocks from the city’s Convention Hall. It runs back 200 feet to Cortland Street, and along the side has the advantage of a private roadway 30 feet wide.

        The main entrance to the lobby of the hotel is from this private street. This provides a porte cochere, which affords protection to those alighting from carriages in inclement weather.

-- New York Times

Rochester, New York, circa 1908. "Hotel Seneca, Clinton Avenue at Cortland Street." Last glimpsed here, the hotel (interior view here) was razed in 1969. 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

Detroit circa 1909. "Operating room" is all it says here, and we're sure whatever that is on the floor will mop right up. 8x10 glass negative. View full size.

Detroit circa 1908. "Mather Block, Woodward Avenue." Where merchants vying for your trade include Madame Mattlar's Temple of Beauty ("Corns removed, 25¢"); William E. Metzger, dealer in "Motorcycles Bicycles Phonographs"; an outpost of the Singer Sewing Machine Co.; Tuomy Bros. (suits and cloaks) and the eyeball-bedizened offices of L. Kaplan Optician ("I Glassed Detroit"). 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

Sometimes you just have to colorize. (The original black-and-white photo by Gordon Parks is here.) Selecting all those stars took forever! View full size.

November 1942. "Lititz, Pennsylvania. Self-portrait at a public sale." Photo by Marjory Collins (1912-1985) for the Office of War Information. View full size.

December 1940. "Putting up a new traffic signal in San Diego." Photo by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

The West Coast has the sunshine
And the girls all get so tanned ...

Huntington Beach, California. "Bathing Beauty Pageant, 1925." Three-panel gelatin silver print by Miles F. Weaver (1879-1932). View full panorama.

        Among the first Cadillacs to have brakes on all four wheels.

San Francisco circa 1925. "Cadillac V63 five-passenger sedan at Lafayette Park." 5x7 inch dry-plate glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.

December 1942. "Locomotives in the Chicago and North Western departure yard about to leave for Clinton, Iowa." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size.