Lost California

The postcards in this collection reflect a hidden past of California that exists now only on the page. From college gates at Stanford destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and hotels in Catalina, Santa Barbara, and Oakland ravaged by fire to giant redwoods on the coast felled by storms and much of downtown Los Angeles razed in the name of the progress, California's landscape has changed dramatically in the last 125 years. The buildings demolished in San Diego's Balboa Park after the 1915 exposition closed are shown here as is downtown San Francisco before the earthquake and fire of 1906, amusement parks that decorated waterfronts from Long Beach to Santa Monica, and city halls from Anaheim to San Jose.