PBA Galleries

Title leaf + 10 leaves of photogravure plates with descriptive captions & printed tissue guards + map. 26.5x35.5 cm (10½x14"), thin boards lettered in gilt.

Rare and elaborate prospectus/promotional piece for the Kern County Land Company. A printed card affixed to front endpaper verso lists Lloyd Tevis as President, S.W. Ferguson as the Bakersfield Agent, and W.H. Holabird as Superintendent of Agencies. Holabird's rubberstamp is on the title page. The fine gravure plates from photographs, with imprint of Forbes Co., Boston, concentrate on the agricultural bounty released into the region by the growing canal system. OCLC/WorldCat lists only one copy, at the University of California Berkeley, and that has thirty plates. This copy has "Kern County Series, No. 1," stamped in gilt on the front cover, so apparently there were also Series Nos. 2 and 3, and sometimes all were bound together.