December 1936. Farm horse in Woodbury County, Iowa. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration.

December 1936. Remains of horse that died of compaction [intestinal blockage] due to poor feed. William Butler's farm near Anthon, Iowa. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration.

July 1923. A wagon horse outfitted against summer insect pests on the streets of Washington, D.C. View full size. National Photo Company Collection.

Winter of 1861-1862. Federal cavalry at Sudley Ford, Virginia, following the battle of First Bull Run (July 1861). View full size. Half of a glass-plate stereograph pair taken by George N. Barnard and compiled by Milhollen and Mugridge.

An express wagon for "Interstate Commerce" stands ready in New York City. From the George Grantham Bain collection. November 1910. View full size.

Another bird's-eye view of Eleventh Avenue, a.k.a "Death Avenue," on New York's West Side as captured by the Bain News Service circa 1911. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

Equestrian signalman on the New York Central's Eleventh Avenue freight line circa 1911. In a 1930 article on the West Side tracks' demise, the New York Times wrote of the "eight men and twenty-four horses comprising the famous 'cowboy troop' [or 'West Side Cowboys'] whose function it has been for years to ride ahead of the puffing locomotives as they wheeled along Death Avenue." The dangerous street-level tracks were eventually replaced by a 1½-mile viaduct, the High Line, that after decades of abandonment is being turned into a long, thin elevated park. View full size. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.

Closeup of the mounted flagman in the previous post. View full size.

Mounted flagman and freight. Another circa 1911 view of the Eleventh Avenue rail line in New York near West 26th Street. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection. The light spot at the top is from deterioration of the emulsion.

A detailed circa 1910 Manhattan streetscape of rail cars at West 26th Street and Eleventh Avenue, known as "Death Avenue" for the many pedestrians killed along the New York Central's freight line there. View full size. Removal of the street-level tracks commenced on December 31, 1929. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. Update: Click here for the largest version.

New York's First Avenue at East 29th Street during the annual Little Italy festa circa 1908. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

Fifth Avenue at 51st Street in New York circa 1913. View full size. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.

Des Moines Fire Department, Des Moines, IA Samuel Wilcox (1855-1942) shown holding the fire horses in front of the fire department. Sam was a member of Comb. Company #9, Des Moines Fire Department. He was a fireman for 34 years. We are related.

"A Circus Girl." 1908 photograph by Frederick W. Glasier of Brockton, Massachusetts. View full size.

October 1939. "The Fairbanks family has moved to three different places on the project in one year." Willow Creek area, Malheur County, Oregon. Photograph by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.