The Society Of California Pioneers

09/03/2026

The Society of California Pioneers’ Alice Phelan Sullivan Library has a rare original copy of “The Illustrated Directory” for San Francisco from 1894-1895. Each page of this unique book features an illustration of the building street fronts on one downtown city block. The names of businesses and proprietors are listed below each building (although, only those business owners who contributed money to the book’s publication are included). Basically, it’s the 19th century version of Google Street View!

The book itself is technically a compilation, as the directory was published monthly in 11 issues. Customers could buy a single issue for 50 cents or subscribe to the entire run for 5 dollars. The directory was the creation of Eli Sheldon Glover, an artist who made many beautifully detailed pictorial maps of American cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Considering that he published under the auspices of The Illustrated Directory Company, and the subtitle of the publication is “A Monthly Magazine of American Cities,” it seems that Glover intended for his venture to expand to include cities across the country. Business must not have gone as well as he hoped; as far as we know, the only other city he covered was Oakland. There is rumor of an edition for San Jose; if anyone has seen it, we’d love to hear about it!

Images: Eli S. Glover, “The Illustrated Directory,” Vol. 1, no. 1 (Dec. 1894) - Vol. 1, no. 11 (Dec. 1895). 979.461 G566 1894

08/25/2026

The Los Angeles International Aviation Meet, held January 10-20, 1910, was a significant event in California history that is now relatively unknown. It was the first air show held in the United States, about 6 years after the Wright brothers made their famous flight at Kitty Hawk. The world’s first air show occurred in France in 1909, and when American Glenn Curtiss won the speed event, he also won the right for the U.S. to host the next air meet. The choice of Los Angeles would prove fortuitous; attending aviators lauded the exceptional atmospheric conditions of Southern California, laying the groundwork for what would become one of the region’s economic cornerstones.

The meet took place in today’s Dominguez Hills, safely distant from downtown Los Angeles but close enough for public transit. Aside from air balloons, dirigibles, and airplanes, spectators also saw many of the celebrities of early aviation, including French pilot Louis Paulhan, who brought 4 planes with him and put the “international” in the International Air Meet. The event attracted massive media attention; businesses and schools closed so that an estimated 225,000 people could attend. (The population of Los Angeles was about 320,000 at the time.) This success was in spite of the fact that less than half of the registered aircraft actually took to the skies! Still, most Americans had never seen flying machines in action before. The air show turned what many skeptically considered a fantasy into a legitimate new technology. One enthusiastic attendee was Seattle timber magnate William Boeing. Awards were given out, records were broken, there were no serious injuries, and an iconic California industry was born.

Image 1: Los Angeles International Aviation Meet composite photo, 1910. C027000
Image 2: Louis Paulhan on Farman Biplane, 1910. C026989
Image 3: Louis Paulhan in Bleriot Monoplane, 1910. C026990
Image 4: Los Angeles International Aviation Meet pin. C005840

08/25/2026

The Society of California Pioneers will be participating in Doors Open California on Saturday, September 5. Our storage tours are FULL but you are welcome to stop by and see the California history we have on display in our program room!

California Preservation Foundation

08/20/2026

An important part of the Society of California Pioneers collection are the numerous accounts of people migrating to California in the mid-19th century. These are essential to our understanding of life in the rapidly changing state, and the motivations, triumphs, and hardships of those who made the journey. Many of us can call ourselves Californians today because these people took the first steps.

First person accounts by “average” people are particularly valuable, such as Mary E. Ackley’s “Crossing the Plains and Early Days in California.” Born Mary Medley in Missouri in 1842, she journeyed overland to California in 1852 with her parents and four siblings. Mary’s father was attracted to opportunities in California, but also by the mild climate, hoping it would improve his wife’s delicate health. The family joined a large party of about 20 to 25 wagons; Mary recalled waiting three weeks to be ferried across the Missouri River, due to the crowds of emigrants. While traveling along the Platte River, their wagon train was struck by cholera, and Mary’s mother died. Even 75 years later, Mary could barely write of the loss. The wagons continued on, daily passing about a dozen graves of cholera victims.

The Medleys settled in Sacramento; their two-story house sat on lowlands, so they moved the entire structure to higher ground. The rooms of the house were separated by canvas walls. Mary described the early floods that plagued the region. After her family took in refugees from neighboring shanties, smallpox broke out in their crowded house, but no one could leave due to the flooding. A doctor vaccinated the younger residents, and everyone survived.

Mary wed Warren Ackley at the age of 15. He died in 1871, leaving her a widow with four children at the age of 29. She never remarried and later moved to San Francisco, where her recollections were first published as a column in “The Argonaut” newspaper. In 1928, two years before her death, Mary had her stories privately printed in a handsome book with illustrated plates, dedicated to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Images: Mary E. Ackley, “Crossing the Plains and Early Days in California” (1928). 920 A182c 1928

08/11/2026

The Society of California Pioneers’ collection includes several photographs by Carleton Watkins of the ferry boat “Solano.” At about 425 feet long and 116 feet wide, it was at one time the largest ferry boat in the world! Why so large? Because the Central Pacific Railroad built “Solano” in order to transport a full train of cars (either 48 freight cars or 24 passenger cars, plus their locomotives) across the Carquinez Strait.

The original route of the transcontinental railroad from Sacramento to the San Francisco Bay was not direct; it ran south past Stockton, over Altamont pass to Niles/Fremont, and then north to Oakland/Alameda (learn more in our post from June 23). This avoided a major water crossing of the Suisun Bay or Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, but it also added about 60 miles to the trip. Eventually, a shorter route was needed. “Solano” was part of the solution. It entered service in 1879, carrying trains across the Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Port Costa, a distance of about 1 mile. At the time, building a bridge was too difficult and cost-prohibitive (the Carquinez Strait is deep, with strong currents and tides). “Solano” operated 24 hours a day and might make as many as 35 to 45 crossings per day. It retained its status as the world’s largest ferry until 1914 when its sister ship, “Contra Costa,” entered service.

“Solano” operated until 1930, when the Benicia-Martinez railroad bridge (still in operation) opened, making the ferry obsolete. “Solano” was scuttled off the shore of Antioch to create a breakwater, where a few parts are still visible above the water line.

Image 1: "Solano" crossing the Carquinez Strait, by Carleton Watkins. C011142
Image 2: Deck of "Solano," 1880, by Carleton Watkins. C011144
Image 3: "Solano" discharging a train at Port Costa, 1880, by Carleton Watkins. C010468
Image 4: "Solano" at Port Costa, 1880, by Carleton Watkins. C010277

08/06/2026

An icon of California’s coast, Morro Rock is actually one in a chain of volcanic plugs across San Luis Obispo County, known as the Nine Sisters. “Morro” is Spanish, with meanings ranging from “snout” to “round hill.” The number of volcanic formations in the chain varies from 7 to 35, depending on the source, but 9 is most often cited: Morro Rock, Black Hill, Cerro Cabrillo, Hollister Peak, Cerro Romauldo, Chumash Peak, Bishop Peak, Cerro San Luis, and Islay Hill.

These extinct volcanic peaks rose about 25 million years ago when magma welled up through volcanic vents and solidified into rock, creating a plug. The softer rock that formed the exterior of the plugs eventually eroded away, exposing the hard rock underneath that we see today. The rocky buttes are popular with rock climbers and of great interest to scientists. Their microclimates form habitats for plants and animals, some rare.

Morro Rock is the shortest of the Nine Sisters, about 578 feet, but is the only one that sits in the ocean and therefore is the best known. Unlike its sisters, the ocean prevents soil from building up around the plug, creating the rock’s famous shape. A sacred site for the Indigenous Chumash and Salinan, Morro Rock was documented by European explorers and became a landmark for mariners, sometimes called the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The US Army Corps of Engineers used Morro Rock as a quarry for 80 years, removing 250,000 tons of rock used to create breakwaters, the road connecting Morro Rock to the mainland, and local buildings. Morro Rock is now about two-thirds its original size and shaped differently than it was a few generations ago. Quarry activity ended in the 1960s when the rock was designated a state historic landmark. Today it’s part of a natural preserve and serves as a sanctuary for Peregrine falcons and other bird species.

In the second photo, Cerro San Luis (left) and Bishop Peak (right) loom over San Luis Obispo. Cerro San Luis is sometimes called Madonna Mountain because it is owned by the Madonna family, of Madonna Inn fame. Bishop Peak is the tallest of the Nine Sisters, at about 1,559 feet.

Image 1: Morro Rock. C048783
Image 2: The Town of San Luis Obispo. C048779

07/30/2026

The Society of California Pioneers has several programs and newsletters related to the California Camera Club. Founded in 1890 “to form a social, scientific and art center for photographers,” the club was one of hundreds that existed around the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Photography at this time was striving to be recognized as a fine art but was also becoming more accessible to amateurs and hobbyists, as equipment became cheaper and easier to use.

The California Camera Club was open to anyone over the age of 18, amateur or professional. While women were more largely represented in this club than in others around the U.S., the membership was still largely male, white, and middle class. Dues in 1890 were $12 annually (over $400 today). The membership hovered between 400 and 500, and amongst the amateurs could be found names like Arnold Genthe, Ansel Adams, and Dorothea Lange. The club had a broad reach up and down the west coast but was headquartered in San Francisco on Market Street, first in the California Academy of Sciences building and then in the building that took its place after the 1906 earthquake and fire. The club’s space included a meeting room, library, dark room, and other facilities for creating prints, all available to members and visitors from other camera clubs.

As seen in the Society’s May 1921 copy of the Camera Club’s newsletter, “The View Finder,” the club oversaw a busy schedule of activities, including excursions to promote outdoor photography, lectures (which attracted hundreds of attendees), demonstrations, classes, exhibitions (which included artists who would go on to renown), and social gatherings. The club had close ties to western artists, politicians, and environmentalists, and influenced the visual depiction of California to a broad audience.

Images: The View Finder of the California Camera Club, Vol. 2 No. 1, May 1921. C022856

07/22/2026

Perhaps you’ve seen 20 Mule Team Borax on store shelves, but do you know the history behind the brand?

Large deposits of borax, a mineral used as a cleaning agent, were discovered in 1881 near Furnace Creek in Death Valley. William T. Coleman soon built the Harmony Borax Works, where 40 men (mostly Chinese laborers) processed 3 tons of borax daily. But getting the borax out of Death Valley was a problem—it was 165 miles across an unforgiving landscape to the nearest railroad spur in Mojave. The solution was a double team of 18 mules and 2 horses (sorry, it wasn’t actually 20 mules!) pulling custom wagons designed to survive the harsh desert conditions. Once 10 tons of borax were loaded on the wagons, plus a 1,000-gallon water tank, the whole mule train weighed 73,200 pounds. Three men drove the 100-foot-long train on a 10-day journey out of Furnace Creek (190 feet below sea level), through Wingate Pass in the Panamint range (2,000 feet), and across the desert. At one point they tried to replace the mule train with a steam engine, but it immediately broke down.

Coleman’s business collapsed in 1888 and was purchased by Francis M. Smith, the “Borax King” and founder of the Pacific Coast Borax Company. Smith ceased cost-prohibitive operations at Harmony, and soon railroad lines were built closer to the borax deposits. The 20 mule teams were only used for about 5 years, and then sporadically into the early 1900s. But their legacy lived on far longer as a powerful brand image, conceived by Pacific Coast Borax employee Stephen T. Mather, who became the first director of the National Park Service. The 20 mule team, a symbol of the romanticized American West, toured nationally, appearing at parades, world’s fairs, Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, the Golden Gate Bridge dedication, and the "Death Valley Days" TV program. The Society of California Pioneers’ photos of the borax wagons on display in Furnace Creek date to 1936, a time when Death Valley saw increased tourism and the wagons were already established as historical icons. Their image can still be seen on borax boxes today.

Images: borax wagons at Death Valley Junction, near Furnace Creek, December 1936. C043144 & C043145

07/16/2026

Many California history fans are familiar with the name Isaiah West Taber, who came to California during the Gold Rush and achieved notoriety as a publisher of both his own photographs and others, including Carleton Watkins. But did you know that his daughter also achieved local fame, as a radio personality?

Louise E. Taber was born in Oakland in 1884, the only child of Isaiah and Annie Taber. She published a romance novel, “The Flame,” in 1911, and subsequently wrote for several San Francisco newspapers and magazines, primarily on art, music, and sometimes history and fiction. She also hosted artists, organized literary teas, and managed the San Francisco Community Opera Company.

A 1935 issue of “Broadcast Weekly” tells of Taber’s radio debut in 1930. She was working as a script and continuity writer for Lee Roberts, a popular San Francisco composer. After spending many hours prepping and rehearsing with an elderly California pioneer that Roberts was set to interview on air, “The guest star could not accustom himself to appearing sans Louise Taber. At last—just one minute before the red light flashed—Mr. Roberts decided that his author should conduct the interview. And Louise Taber, in spite of her refusals and insistence that she’d never been on the air before and would ruin everything, was literally shoved into a radio debut.”

Taber hosted several shows on (dramatized and romanticized) state history in the 1930s, including “California Memories” and “Golden Memories.” Many included musical accompaniment. She shot to fame with “Gold Rush Days,” whose broadcasts were popular enough to be published in a series of pamphlets. According to a 1938 article in the Redwood City Tribune, Taber procured much of her historical research from The Society of California Pioneers. The Society has a collection of her broadcast scripts. Taber passed away from a heart attack on a San Francisco street corner in 1946.

Interested in radio history? Check out Radio Day By The Bay in Alameda on July 18, from our friends at the California Historical Radio Society.

Image 1: Louise Taber, c.1930s. California State Library
Images 2-3: Louise Taber radio scripts, c.1930s. C059005 & C059003

07/14/2026

Please join us for our next FREE public program at Pioneer Hall! On Wednesday, July 29, we will be hosting local historian Woody LaBounty for his talk entitled "South of the Slot: A History of San Francisco's South of Market Neighborhood."

LaBounty is President and CEO of San Francisco Heritage, a 54-year-old nonprofit dedicated to preserving and enhancing the city's unique architectural and cultural heritage. He researches and writes on San Francisco history in his weekly email newsletter, San Francisco Story. In his talk, LaBounty will share the story of the South of Market neighborhood (home to Pioneer Hall!). Once the city's working-class warehouse, industrial, and manufacturing district, the neighborhood began a journey of dynamic physical and cultural changes after the 1906 earthquake and fire that continues today. The former home of Irish machinists, Greek restauranteurs, Filipino farm workers, and longshoremen, across the last century “SOMA” has welcomed LGBTQ+ dance clubs, cultural institutions, tech hubs, and some surprising residential architecture. LaBounty will highlight local landmarks and share how SF Heritage works for greater recognition and protection of the neighborhood’s unique architecture, businesses, and subcultures.

This event is free and open to members as well as the public.

Space is limited! Please RSVP to [email protected] or (415) 957-1849