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Caption: "State Capitol, Richmond, Virginia. July 21, 1934." Virginia's State Capitol is visible in the left side of this photograph, while the Virginia Washington Monument can be seen at the right. The Capitol, designed largely by Thomas Jefferson and French architect Charles-Louis Clérisseau, was sufficiently complete by October 1792 for the Virginia General Assembly to meet within its walls. The building served as the capitol of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Virginia Washington Monument, completed in 1869, features a 21-foot-tall statue of George Washington, mounted on a horse.

Date: 7/21/1934

Caption: "Mission Cliff, San Diego.," c. 1905. View of the pavilion in San Diego's Mission Cliff Gardens. Originally opened in the 1880s as the "Bluffs" by the San Diego Cable Railway Company, the owners hoped to entice people to ride the cable cars by providing a recreational destination. The pavilion seen in the photograph was constructed in 1890. A few years later, the Citizens' Traction Company purchased the park and changed its name to Mission Cliff Park. In 1898, the property was sold yet again, this time to J.D. Spreckels and the San Diego Electric Railway Company. Spreckels hoped to transform the property into a quiet, restful, public botanical garden. The name changed again, to Mission Cliff Gardens, to reflect this change in direction for the park. The botanical gardens developed at the park became world-renowned before closing to the public in 1929. The property was subdivided in 1942, into residential lots.

Date: 1905

Caption: "U.S. Mint unhurt," c. 1906. Pictured is the U.S. Mint building in San Francisco, which opened in 1874, after the original 1854 building was outgrown, which had been established to serve the gold mines during the California Gold Rush. The building suffered little damage after the 1906 earthquake. The facility served as the San Francisco U.S. Mint until 1937, when workers moved to a larger and more modern building. In 1961, the old U.S. Mint, known as the "Granite Lady," was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Date: 1906

No Caption: The photograph has a hand-written inscription stating: "Portola Electric Bell Copyright 1909 Pillsbury Picture Co. No. 800." Installed on the intersection of Third and Market Streets in San Francisco, the Portola Electric Bell contained two thousand bulbs and rose 125 feet above the street. It was part of the Portola Festival of 1909, a grand celebration devised to commemorate the discovery of San Francisco Bay by Gaspar De Portola, and for the public to celebrate the future of the rebuilt city after the 1906 earthquake and fires.

Date: 1909

Caption: "Machine Shop -- Fort Winfield Scott," c. 1913. Low brick building with tile roof, with William McCarthy (far left) and two unidentified men standing in front. Fort Winfield Scott, formerly Fort Point, was part of an effort by the U.S. government to protect the Golden Gate, entrance to the San Francisco Bay. Built between 1853-1861, the fort included emplacements for 141 guns but never fired a weapon in defense of the Bay. Its name was officially changed in 1882 to Fort Winfield Scott. This only lasted four years, however, for in 1886 the fort was officially downgraded to a sub-post of the San Francisco Presidio and the name discontinued. It was resurrected in 1912, with the establishment of a coastal artillery fortification at the Presidio, called, once again, Fort Winfield Scott.

Date: 1913

Caption: "Santa Clara Mission," c. 1910. Founded in 1777, Mission Santa Clara featured several different churches over the years. This photograph shows the mission church as it appeared from roughly 1861 to 1926. In the 1860s, Santa Clara College President Burchard Villager decided to rebuild many of the buildings on the campus. In the process, the mission church was renovated in the Italianate style, with a second bell tower. This Italianate-style church burned in 1926. The church was then rebuilt as a modern reconstruction of the fifth church on the site, the original of which was destroyed by fire in 1825.

Date: 1910

Caption: "Havana Cemetery, Second Oldest in the World. July 4, 34." Several memorials in Colon Cemetery can be seen in this photograph. Founded in 1876, Colon Cemetery replaced Havana's first cemetery, Espada Cemetery, after a cholera epidemic in 1868 revealed the need for a new, larger facility. Today, the Colon Cemetery holds more than 800,000 graves. It is not known where William McCarthy found reference to this being the "second oldest" cemetery in the world, as California State Archives staff could not verify that statistic.

Date: 7/4/1934

Caption: "Salt Air - Great Salt Lake," c.1923. Grace McCarthy poses in front of the Saltair resort complex on Utah's Great Salt Lake. Constructed in 1893 and designed by Richard K.A. Kletting, the Saltair set out to be the Western counterpart of Coney Island. The resort was a popular spot for Mormon families, only fifteen miles from Salt Lake City and overseen by Church leaders. The Church sold the building in 1906. It was later destroyed by fire in 1925, but a second pavilion was quickly built.

Date: 1923

Caption: "R U N N I N G J U M P.," c. 1917. Image of an early high jumper in mid-leap, with men clad in military uniforms watching, as well as civilian men and women. In the high jump, athletes attempt to leap over a horizontal bar without the benefit of a pole (as in pole vaulting). The technique shown here is an early one with the jumper upright rather than in the "Fosbury Flop" position, developed later in the century. The uniforms and surrounding vegetation in the photograph suggest that that event may have taken place at Camp Lewis, Washington.

Date: 1917

Apollinaris, Friedrichshall, etc.

Date: 1888