Jackson, William H.:

$7,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE ROYAL GORGE (GRAND CANON OF THE ARKANSAS.) DENVER AND RIO GRANDE RAILWAY - THE SCENIC LINE OF AMERICA [manuscript caption title]. A beautiful mammoth-plate albumen photograph by William H. Jackson of the Royal Gorge in central Colorado. Jagged cliffs rise steeply into the sky, and the track of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway comes toward us from the distance, running along the Arkansas River. Jackson used a slight time exposure in taking this image, giving the river a very fluid quality. The photograph is in a contemporary presentation frame, inscribed with the initials of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway in the bottom panel.This photograph was taken during Jackson's Denver era when he did extensive work for the railroads of Colorado and was given his own personal railroad car from which he based his photographic excursions and operations. This photograph is an example of the work Jackson did for the Denver and Rio Grande Railway. Jackson (1843-1942) began his career in photography in 1858, working as a retouching artist in a studio in Troy, New York. In the 1860s, after serving briefly in the Union Army, he worked at several studios in Vermont before moving to Omaha, Nebraska in 1867, where he established his own studio. He worked on an extensive series of views for the Union Pacific Railroad, which earned him enough notice to be recruited by Ferdinand Hayden for the U.S. Geological Survey team. With the Survey, Jackson explored and photographed vast areas of the West

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