Carleton Watkins was one of the Old West’s “big name” photographers. He did most of his work in the 1860s and 1870s, when photography was just starting to become popular and it required those big cameras and glass negatives. Watkins was based in San Francisco, but he lugged his enormous camera all up and down the California coast, into the canyons of Yosemite, and even here to the Comstock Lode. He specialized in stereoscopic photography, and I found a website, carletonwatkins.org, that is collecting as many of his stereo views as they can get their hands on. Included is one entire page devoted to the photos he took at Lake Tahoe, and another devoted to Carson City and Virginia City.
There are some really cool pictures here, and I pulled a few out to post on this page. But you really should follow the links and thumb through the entire collection.
The first Ormsby House
The first State Children’s Home
The Lumberyard (where the RR Museum is today)
Looking down Carson Street
The International Hotel in V.C.
Piper’s Opera House in V.C.
