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Caption: "Training Ship Philadelphia, Bremerton," c. 1908-1912. View of the USS Philadelphia (C-4). The fourth ship to bear the name, the Philadelphia first launched in September 1889. She sailed as part of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Squadron until 1893. She then sailed into the Pacific Ocean, where she served until being decommissioned and docked in Puget Sound in 1902. In 1904, the Navy "housed over" the ship (adding the roofed quarters visible on the upper deck in the photograph) and designated her a receiving ship for new sailors not yet assigned to a crew. The Philadelphia served in this capacity until 1912. After a brief stint as a prison ship, the Philadelphia again became a receiving ship in 1916. The Navy sold her in 1927.

Date: 1908

No Caption: Educational Building on the left, with Tower of Jewels in the background, at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915. The Panama Pacific International Exposition was held to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, as well as inventive technologies and new industries from around the world. It was also a chance for San Francisco to show the world how the great city had rebuilt and thrived after the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Date: 1915

No Caption: Colonnades at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915. The Panama Pacific International Exposition was held to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, as well as inventive technologies and new industries from around the world. It was also a chance for San Francisco to show the world how the great city had rebuilt and thrived after the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Date: 1915

Caption: "Hotel-Saint Francis," c. 1913. St. Francis Hotel at Union Square with partial north wing extension and the Dewey Monument in the foreground (Robert I. Aitken, sculptor), which commemorated U.S. Admiral George Dewey's naval victory at the battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish American War of 1898. The luxury hotel opened in 1904 and, fortunately, suffered little damage from the 1906 earthquake. It was expanded in 1913, and 1972, making it one of the largest hotels in the city.

Date: 1913

No Caption: Court of the Universe at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915. The Panama Pacific International Exposition was held to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, as well as inventive technologies and new industries from around the world. It was also a chance for San Francisco to show the world how the great city had rebuilt and thrived after the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Date: 1915

Caption: "Division Headquarters. Camp Lewis, Wash.," c. 1918. Shows the two-story building that served as Division Headquarters for Camp Lewis in Washington. The Camp was established by the U.S. Army in 1917, as part of the U.S.'s preparations for eventual entry into World War I. Rapid construction had the camp ready to house 60,000 men within a few months. The site is still in use as a military facility, under the name Fort Lewis.

Date: 1918

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

No caption, c. 1914. William and Grace McCarthy (fourth and fifth from the left) seated on a log with a group of unidentified friends and family in the Skaggs Springs area of Sonoma County. Skaggs Springs was a resort area along the Russian River, known for its hot springs. The area now lies beneath the waters of Lake Sonoma, flooded after construction of the Warm Springs Dam, completed in 1982.

Date: 1914

Caption: "Opening Day, Nov. 12, 1936, San Francisco, Oakland Bay Bridge, Before the Traffic Started." View of the San Francisco terminus of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Built between May 1933 and its opening on November 12, 1936, the Bay Bridge's design combined three different types of bridge-building technology over the five miles it covers between San Francisco and Oakland: a suspension span, a cantilevered span, and a tunnel. At the time of its completion the bridge was the longest steel structure on the globe. It also featured the deepest bridge pier ever built, and the world's largest bore tunnel.

Date: 11/12/1936

Caption: "Portland Fair," Portland, Oregon, 1905. The Lewis and Clark Exposition was held in Portland, Oregon, from June 1st to October 15th, 1905. It celebrated the one-hundred year anniversary of the exploratory expedition of the Louisiana Purchase and what became the northwestern part of the United States, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Some 1.6 million people visited the fair, viewing exhibits from twenty-one countries.

Date: 1905