PBA Galleries

With 50 original gelatin silver photographs mounted in an album of black leaves. 49 photographs are 14.5x8.5 cm. (5½x3½") or reverse, one is circular, 4.5 cm. (1½") in diameter, mounted on inside of front cover. Album is 10.5x18.5 cm. (4¼x7¼"), flexible black morocco.

Fascinating album of photographic stills of a movie, now lost, made in Yosemite by Arthur C. Pillsbury, featuring actors playing Native Americans, with courtship, jealousy, and other drama. Arthur C. Pillsbury (1870-1946), first visited Yosemite in 1895 traveling from the Stanford campus by bicycle. In 1906 he founded “Pillsbury Picture Company”. With the money earned from his immensely popular images of the San Francisco earthquake and fire Arthur purchased the “Three Arrows Studio” in Yosemite from the important southern California photographers Hallett and Taylor. Playing the male lead in the movie, Tee-Hee-Nay, is Don Tressider, while his wife Mary Curry Tressider plays Kos-su-Kah. Donald Tressider (1894-1948) first arrived in Yosemite in 1914, staying at Camp Curry. He became infatuated with David Curry’s daughter Mary. They became inseparable. The following year Don was hired by David as a porter. They were married in 1920. Both were heavily involved in Yosemite affairs until their deaths. Mary Curry (1893-1970) was David and Jennie's oldest child. She and Donald would eventually hold all management positions in The Curry Company including president and chairperson. During the winter of 1970 Jennie died at the Ahwahnee in the penthouse designed by herself and Donald in 1926. Provenance: John Carpenter.