How the Wild West REALLY looked: Gorgeous sepia-tinted pictures show the landscape as it was charted

[xchrom]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149899/The-American-West-youve-seen-Amazing-19th-century-pictures-landscape-chartered-time.html

How the Wild West REALLY looked: Gorgeous sepia-tinted pictures show the landscape as it was charted for the very first time


Breathtaking landscape: A view across the Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho in 1874 as it was caught on camera by photographer Timothy O'Sullivan during Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian that lasted from 1871 to 1874. Approximately 45 feet higher than the Niagara falls of the U.S and Canada, the Shoshone Falls are sometimes called the 'Niagara of the West'. Before mass migration and industrialisation of the west, the Bannock and Shoshone Indians relied on the huge salmon stocks of the falls as a source of food. And the John C. Fremont Expedition of 1843, one of the first missions to encounter the falls reported that salmon could be caught simply by throwing a spear into the water, such was the stock


Native Americans: The Pah-Ute (Paiute) Indian group, near Cedar, Utah in a picture from 1872. Government officials were chartering the land for the first time as part of Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian which O'Sullivan accompanied the Lieutenant on. During this expedition O'Sullivan nearly drowned in the Truckee River (which runs from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake, located in northwestern Nevada) when his boat got jammed against rocks.


Breathtaking: Twin buttes stand near Green River City, Wyoming, photographed in 1872 four years after settlers made the river basin their home. Green River and its distinctive twin rock formations that stand over the horizon was supposed to the site of a division point for the Union Pacific Railroad, but when the engineers arrived they were shocked to find that the area had been settled and so had to move the railroad west 12 miles to Bryan, Wyoming.


On this rock I build a church: Old Mission Church, Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico pictured in 1873 where the Zuni people of North have lived for millennia. O'Sullivan was famous for not trying to romanticise the native American plight or way of life in his photographs and instead of asking them to wear tribal dress was happy to photograph them wearing denim jeans.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149899/The-American-West-youve-seen-Amazing-19th-century-pictures-landscape-chartered-time.html#ixzz2awUOhMi7
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[Catherina]

1. Gorgeous n/t

[BeyondGeography]

2. Highly rec'd

Film-wise, if you love looking at the West, John Ford's Wagon Master is about as good as it gets:

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/20/entertainment/ca-secondlook20

It's filmed around Moab and, as Peter Bogdanovich says during his interview on TCM's dvd with recently deceased co-star Harry Carey, Jr., the camera is always in the right place.

[customerserviceguy]

3. Amazing

Even without color, one can appreciate the majesty of the settings, and the inner strength of the Native Americans pictured. Thanks much for posting this!