PBA Galleries

Mammoth plate albumen photograph. 52x41 cm. (20½x15½"), matted & framed under plexiglass.

Rare and important photograph of the first hotel in Yosemite Valley by the master photographer. Watkins made mammoth plate images of three Yosemite Valley Hotels: ‘Hutchings’, ‘Leidig’s and the ‘Lower Hotel’ (later ‘Blacks’). The first two were photographed after 1865. In 1861 Watkins was interested less in improvements in the valley than in the natural wonders. In the case of the Lower Hotel, it just happened to be in the vicinity of the largest Ponderosa Yellow Pine in the valley. Originally completed in 1858 serving as a saloon and dirt floored flop house, its rustic nature fell out of favor with the completion of the ‘Upper Hotel'. The first building erected in Yosemite Valley is empty and falling into disrepair at the time of the photograph. Three years later it would begin its storied history as ‘Blacks Hotel’.  Provenance: John Carpenter.