Laramie, Wyoming: [1895]-1897.
Price: $2,500.00
Hardcover. Small oblong octavo (approximately 7.5" x 6"). Half leather and cloth with "Photographs" in gilt on top board. Contains 114 mounted sepia-toned albumen photographs. Disbound with spine lacking, good, with photographs mostly near fine. Many of the captioned photos depict agricultural experiment station work (station buildings, insect collections cases, a large photograph of scorpion), staff photographs (i.e. two men waking up after sharing a bed for the night), a hunting expedition into the back country, and two street views of Laramie, one depicting a fire engine in front of the "H. W. Crass, Laramie Bindery". Two side-by-side images show the same man strenuously and unflatteringly cycling from behind, another shows two men overlooking images labeled "Kodak Friends", another is of two women looking at books on a table, there are many candid family images including of children in wagons or perambulators. A fair number are captioned. One image, late in the album is dated 1897, all seem to be in chronological proximity and we assume the others are from approximately the same time or a little earlier.
The album is labeled on the front endpaper in pencil in a much later hand: “M.T. Buffaum, Professor Un. of Wyoming.” We could find no record for such an individual, however there does exist evidence for an agriculture professor named Burt Craig Buffum who worked on the experimental station and was known to be an avid amateur photographer. The album likely belonged to him and was mislabeled by a later owner. Buffum’s photography and papers are held at the University of Wyoming. A wonderfully pleasing little album of Western images.
Item #420863
