Scenes from my vintage photo collection

I'm an informal collector of vintage and antique photo snapshots and slides. Professionally taken pictures of course have their own particular charm and value, but when I'm perusing antique malls and estate sales, it's the vintage stuff I'm on the lookout for. My tastes trend heavily toward depictions of places I have visited, historical oddities and one of a kind items, children/families, local history, and the occasional random, heartwarming or otherwise eye pleasing snapshot. I pick these up wherever I find them, whether at the aforementioned antique malls and estate sales, online listings, or anywhere else they happen to cross my path.

Here I present a selection of items from my vintage photo collection, all of which depict locations I've visited during my various road trips across the United States and Canada. They are accompanied by some of my own photos of the same or similar locations.

Grand Canyon, 1922

I visited the Grand Canyon's North Rim in October of 2021. The writing on one of my pair of antique photos identifies the views as having been recorded to film in June 1922, some 99 years prior to my visit.

Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is the estate formerly owned by President George Washington, a destination I visited in 2023. My vintage photo collection includes several views of the main residence as seen from the rear, including this one which was taken on an unknown date.

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls photos are comparatively plentiful in the antique photo market, given the site's longevity as a major tourist destination.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Sometime around late 1981 or early 1982 my family visited Washington, D.C. I made my first visit to the city as an adult in October 2015 during one of my annual road trips.

Independence Hall, 1942

Independence Hall was where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were adopted. I visited it in 2015, during my first visit to Philadelphia.

St. Lawrence River from Quebec City, 1933

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that Canada is one of my favorite places to visit. This view of the St. Lawrence River and the city of Lévis as seen from Quebec City spoke to me, as the view was very similar to the one I'd experinced during my visits to the city in 2018 and 2019. I strolled along a path very near to this location while on a ghost tour in 2018 and again during a walking tour a year later, and captured my own view of the river from closer to ground level in 2019. Both cities have grown considerably in the past 90+ years.

View from Citadel Hill, Halifax, Nova Scotia

I visited Halifax in October 2014, touring the Citadel as my last stop in the city before heading toward Pictou and the Prince Edward Island ferry. As seen in these photos, the surroundings have definitely developed over the decades.

Vancouver skyline, 1937

According to the guide on one of my hop on/hop off bus rides, Vancouver is the most expensive city in North America. The balmy weather, infusion of Asian money, and inflated housing costs make it a very pricey destination indeed, with space in one outdoor parking lot I visited costing $3.75 per half hour. Old photos bear witness to how Vancouver was once a much more modest city than it is today. The writing on the back of the photo reads, "Vancouver skyline with boat refueling stations in foreground."

Petrified Forest

I visited Arizona's Petrified Forest during my first trip to the state in October 2021. I recognized the site on the old photo immediately, despite there being no identification notes written on the back.

West Texas, 1940s

The writing on the back of this photo reads "So. Alpine." The exact photo location is unknown, and whether it's near the current US 67/90 or somewhere else, possibly off present day State Hwy 118 or even another spot, it looks a lot like what Allison and I saw in this region of West Texas during our road trip in 2020. Mountain views near the Prada façade, where I took my own photo below, aren't as prominent as they are closer to Alpine, but the fencing that parallels the roadway is virtually identical.

Texas state line

I have crossed the state line into Texas many, many times when returning home toward the end of various road trips. This photo shows (presumably) the border between the states of Texas and Oklahoma. The actual location isn't described on the back, but the marker pictured appears to the same one I've seen in a multitude of other, similar photos, one of which gives the location as near the Red River. The picture compares well to one of my own photos from 2013, taken while returning home from Florida.

Wyoming state line

There's not a whole lot to say about Wyoming, other than it being the location of Yellowstone National Park and a state I've been to twice as of this writing. I stopped overnight in 2016 at a Sheridan motel, and spent a few hours in Cheyenne in 2021, but other than that I don't have a lot to say about it other than it being large and mostly empty. This photo from an unknown date decades in the past clearly pictures that vast emptiness.

Midtown Manhattan, circa 1905

This is one of my oldest vintage photos, and depicts a scene in Midtown Manhattan from the early 1900s. The prominent building in the foreground appears to me to be the Van Corlear, which was demolished in 1921 to make way for the present day Park Central Hotel. This suggests that the photographer's vantage point was along 7th Avenue near W 56th Street, but I'm not familiar enough with Manhattan or its historical neighborhoods to know exactly where. The writing on the back of the photo, partially illegible owing to photo album residue, appears to state that the building is "just across the street from Carnegie Hall," which is consistent with the Van Corlear's former location. The two X's appear to denote where someone (the photographer?) was married by a Reverend Collyer.

Manhattan, 1946

My first real trip to New York City for reasons other than passing through it was in 2019, when I visited Lower Manhattan. I returned in 2023.

View of Montreal from Mount Royal scenic overlook, 1937

I like to seek out elevated, overlook-type areas any time I'm in a new city. I first read about this one during my second visit to Canada's second largest metro area, but my attempts to find it were unsuccessful. Five years later, I realized I just hadn't gone far enough onto the mountain. The Mount Royal lookout has been a popular spot for tourists for many years, and it's easy to see why.

View of Portland, Maine from the Portland Observatory, likely late 19th century

As a rule, I confine my old photo collecting to personal snapshots and eschew commercial postcards, press photos, and souvenir photo books. But when I found this stereoscope I knew I had to have it, as it depicts a view nearly identical to the one I enjoyed when I visited the Observatory in 2015. I was positioned at a different angle relative to the cityscape below, but was likely no more than a few feet away from where the stereoscopic photographer had stood when I took my photo.

Scenic overlook, El Paso, Texas

The overlook is a must see attraction in this border town, allowing visitors to take in a picturesque view of El Paso and beyond to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.