Item #7377 [Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]. Kaelin Family Signis Kaelin.
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]
[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]

Sign up to receive email notices of recent acquisitions.

Signis Kaelin, Kaelin Family, et al.

[Album of Prescott, Arizona mining photos and postcards.]

[Arizona Territory, 1908–1914]. 8vo (9.25” x 8”), faux brown leather, embossed with gilt title. 53 photographs and postcards, 3.5” x 5.5”; 31 mounted one image per leaf, 22 loose. Images include 4 original photographs, 14 real photo postcards, 35 photomechanical postcards (including 13 color, 3 embossed color greeting pcs, and 19 b&w). Versos include notes written in ink in German, canceled stamps, and later notes written in two hands in pencil. One used card with note written in English. 26 items have been used, 15 with additional notes on the image side. The majority of the cards were sent to Mr. Sig. Kaelin in Mayer, Arizona, San Diego and Long Beach, CA; also to Miss Bertha Ochsner in Prescott, Arizona. CONDITION: Very good, most images with strong tonality, others with some fading.

An engaging album of photos and postcards documenting the activities of a community of Swiss immigrant miners in Prescott, Arizona.

In 1912, the newly established state of Arizona supported some 445 active mines, seventy-two concentrating facilities, and eleven smelters. This album documents the activities of a group of Swiss immigrants in Arizona during the first two decades of the twentieth century, centering on the Kaelin family and their claims in the Blue Bell Mine located near Mayer, Arizona in Yavapai County. One image shows a group of couples, identified as “the clan from Switzerland.” Swiss miners are known to have prospected the Swastika Mine Claim and the Prescott area. Two images capture a Swiss Immigrant Orchestra: a group of six individuals playing music together outside a building and another group of six miners shown in 1917 posing with their instruments. One of these images is captioned, “Swiss Immigrant orchestra ca. 1906, Yavapai Co., Negative Printed in Switzerland. Mayer, A[rizona]. T[erritory]. Paula Schrader Plays the Fiddle, 2nd from right.”

Included here are scenes of miners at work and posed with businessmen; mountain and valley views; a man and a woman panning for gold; a group of women hunting, their guns drawn; two women cooking outdoors on a makeshift stove; three cowgirls posing beside a horse, smoking cigars and wearing guns; a milk-delivery man next to a Kaelin & Co. coach; the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Depot in Prescott; a photomontage of Prescott residences; elevated views of Prescott, and underground mining scenes. Other subjects and Arizona locations pictured include the Swastika Claim, Gurley St. in Prescott, Stamp Mill-Tiger Cold Co. in Kingman, Roosevelt Dam in Globe, Granite Creek, and Fort Whipple. A range of color postcards picture Prescott, Arizona; the Pima people; a Pima camp; an Indian School in Phoenix, and more. Identified photographers include W. H. Timerhoff; M. Rieder; H. M. McNeil, and Corbin & Bork. Several names mentioned in the annotations include Bertha Ochsner, Signis Kaelin, and Paula Schrader, providing clues for future researchers. The Kaelin family is believed to have later settled in San Diego in the 1920s. One annotation here suggests the family may have lived and mined in Bisbee, AZ before moving to the Prescott, Arizona area.

A revealing accumulation of images documenting the mining experiences of a Swiss immigrant family in Arizona in the early twentieth century.

Item #7377

Price: $1,750.00

See all items in Photographs
See all items by Kaelin Family Signis Kaelin