Thursday, January 20, 2022

Friday's Featured Photograph (s) The King Album......Views of A Trip To Cliff House


   This is a tinted picture of the famous Cliff House in San Francisco.  It is in the King Family Album, and is one of three pictures in the album taken of the landmark.  The pictures can be dated to some time before September 7th, 1907, as the structure burned down on that date after having survived the 1906 San Francisco Great Earthquake and Fire.  


    This picture was printed on a heavier card stock than the rest of the photographs in the album and very well could have been a souvenir photograph that was tinted.   It is 10" by 6 1/2".  If you look closely, you can see hints of yellow, blue and pink on the horizon and in the sky, done in colored pencil by someone at a later date.  Perhaps Emma, or maybe her mother Anna made the pencil additions while remembering the visit to Cliff House.  An intriguing mystery! 



The same photograph, enlarged to show the detail of the building and cliff. You can see the pencil additions to the sky. They do not detract from the photograph, but add another layer to the story. 







 
The entrance to the Cliff House.  It looks like you could perhaps purchase souvenirs at the shaded booth on the left.  






 
An enlarged view of the same photograph.  The house was a beautiful structure, built after the first Cliff House burned down in 1894.  This is Cliff House number 2, rebuilt by Adolph Sutro for the grand sum of $75,000.  It was fashioned after a French Chateau. It burned down in the span of two hours. 






  
  I have shared this picture previously, but I will share it again, as it was taken at the same time as the above picture. You can see the Lurline or Olympic Pier in the background.  The pier  was built to protect the intake pipe that provided sea water to the Lurline Baths on Bush and Larkin streets.  Members of the public could rent a bathing suit and swim in either heated or cold pools for 30 cents.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurline_Baths).

   This must have been a lovely excursion to the seaside, with a long walk down Ocean  Beach. Perhaps it was taken on a Sunday afternoon.  The day looks bright and sunny.  My Great Grandmother, Emma King, is on the left with her father Charles J. King on the right. This picture certainly gives us a sense of place and time.  It is wonderful that we can still go back and revisit this trip to the seaside by opening the album and turning the pages. 

   I would date this excursion at around 1903-04.  Emma looks like she might be around 15-16 years of age, and Charles is wearing a bowler hat typically seen around this time. The King family had previously been living in Grass Valley, California, and had moved to San Francisco around these dates.   They were living on Golden Gate Avenue at the time of the earthquake in 1906. 


Below is a YouTube video entitled Panorama of Ocean Beach and Cliff House (1903) H. J. Miles.  If you look closely in the beginning of the video, you can see windmills in the background.  And lots of bowler hats!












 For more information on Cliff House history, please take a look at https://cliffhouse.com/history/

Relationship Reference:  Me->Margaret Hansen Boothby->Margaret Elizabeth Hayes Hansen->Emma Lavinia King Hayes Van Duzer->Charles J. King

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