More and more old Redding Photos

Mary A. saw the old photos I posted yesterday, and sent me a link to even more old Redding photos online at UC Davis. Check out this one of Swimming in the River Imagine swimming in the Sacramento River now. Brrr! Part of the Eastman Collection. 38 lineal feet of photographs. There are lot of other search terms that turn up interesting bits of bygone Redding. Anyway, you can search any keyword in the collection HERE.

Fire at the McConnell Arboretum in ReddingArboretum Fire 2008 Photo by Mary A. and used with permission (I hope)

I was going to post the swimming image itself here, which was donated to UC Davis in 1994, but they wanted $50 for a courtesy fee. Which is probably appropriate, but I don’t really have the budget for it right now. But even better, you can look all you want online for free. I called the Shasta Historical society about the photos I used from their site and they said it was probably OK as non-commercial use, but you should at least be a member, which is only $20. So now I’m a member. You might consider it too if you like looking at history, and think it should be preserved.

From their website: “Jervie Henry Eastman was born, July 20, 1880, in White Cloud, Michigan. His family moved to northern California in 1886. In 1898, Eastman launched his photographic career in Sisson, California (later named Mount Shasta), as a view photographer. He became a partner in the Shasta View Company in 1907. Eastman lost his entire stock of plates and cards in a fire in 1912. (OUCH! Still thought provoking to consider what happens to historical DIGITAL photos over time?)

In 1921, Jervie Henry Eastman moved to Susanville and established Eastman & Company as a commercial photography and post card studio. In 1936 he hired Mirl Simmons, a young photographer from Hillsborough, West Virginia, to help with the postcard photography. In 1947, Eastman and Simmons became partners. The business had expanded to provide photographic supplies to southeastern Oregon and studios in Westwood, Weed, and Susanville.

Eastman retired from photography in 1959 and sold his share of the business to Simmons. He died in Susanville on February 11, 1969. Simmons ran the Eastman Studios until 1980, when he retired and sold the business to John and Shirley Castle. Mirl Simmons died on April 27, 1987, in Jamestown, California. The Eastman’s Originals Collection (the historical postcards and negatives) was sold to Anne Fisher in 1982. She managed the collection until her retirement in 1994. She donated the collection to the University of California, Davis, in 1994. Includes photographs, negatives, and postcards for a wide variety of northern California locations and events, including dam construction, logging, mining, food processing, and community buildings and activities.”

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