Includes: Ten photograph albums, with gelatin silver photographs tipped or laid on the leaves, flexible leather covers, images mostly 8x10, though some are smaller, a few of the photographs are loose, and some among these have on the verso the rubberstamp of San Francisco photographer Gabriel Moulin. Some of the albums have gilt titling on the covers: Westwood Highlands, with 94 photographs of residences, some under construction, also land being cleared, etc. * Westwood Park, with 83 photograph of residences, some under construction. * Westwood Park, with 23 photographs. * Estate of Adolph Sutro, Deceased. Appraised by A.S. Baldwin, March-April, 1910. 47 leaves printed on rectos only, plus 62 original silver photographs (5 of them fold-outs), of the vast real estate holdings of Adolph Sutro, mostly in San Francisco but a few outside. (Front cover detached.) * Untitled album with 34 photographs of houses and neighborhoods in Presidio Terrace neighborhood of San Francisco. * San Mateo, with 54 photographs of residences, etc., also the train station, with a map of Subdivision Number Three. * Redwood City and Dingee Park, with 35 photographs of newly built residences, also the 1909 auction of building sites conducted by Baldwin & Howell, the train station, etc. * Sloane Building, Emma Rose, Owner, with 29 photographs of the construction of the Mission Street building in 1908. (Dampstained, with damage to many of the photographs from adhesion.) * Davis-Schonwasser Building, Macdonough Estate Company, Owner, with 25 photographs of the construction of the building at Sutter and Grant streets in 1908. (Front cover detached.) * Untitled album with 66 small photographs of houses in Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco, with several typed pages describing the different types, also a blueprint.
Approximately 13 ledgers, account books, appraisals and abstracts of titles relating to Baldwin & Howell properties, the Residential Development Co. of S.F., etc. Among these: Record of Sales – Baldwin & Howell – Jan. 1 1897 to Dec. 1902. * Auction Sales - Baldwin & Howell, includes auction of portions of Sutro Estate in 1910. * Appraisements & Estimates, Renting & Leasing Properties, from June 1911. * Abstract of Title to…part of Block 208 Western Addition, at Grove and Laguna sts. * Three books of stock certificates for shares in the Residential Development Company of San Francisco (one book unused, the others badly worn). * Appraisals – Properties of the California Transit Company and Pickwick Corporation (includes land all over California, with sketch maps. * etc.
Plus one box of miscellaneous papers, including tax returns, business correspondence, descriptions of properties, additional photographs, and more.
A fascinating and quite significant archive, covering much of the development of the western portions of San Francisco during the first quarter of the 20th century, as the vast holdings of Adolph Sutro and other landowners were carved into residential areas that are now the Sunset, Richmond, and Western Addition areas of San Francisco. The real estate firm of Archibald S. Baldwin (died 1929) and Josiah R. Howell (died 1924) was perhaps the most important in San Francisco and the Bay Area during that time, and were instrumental in the development of such neighborhoods as Westwood Park, Forest Hills, Presidio Terrace, Balboa Park, the Richmond / Sunset, and elsewhere. There reach extended beyond San Francisco, and they created residential areas in the San Francisco Peninsula, East Bay, and even northward as far as Clear Lake and Sacramento. Of particular value are the albums of photographs of the areas being developed, showing the houses under construction and newly completed.