1930 Photograph Album and Extensive Handwritten Commentary of the Spear Family’s Incredible Road Trip Across the United States of America and Niagara Falls, Canada

On offer is a beautiful, richly-decorated Yellowstone Park leather photo album portraying the Spear family’s 1930 family trip intertwined with photographs of scenes for a long-past American west.

The unknown author/photographer of this album accompanied her parents on a road trip from their home across the United States to the Rocky Mountains and back. They also took a side-trip to Niagara Falls in Canada. From context, we can determine that it is a young woman who is traveling with her parents. The family surname is Spear, and context suggests that they likely lived in Rhode Island.

The album opens with two pages from a tourist publication broadsheet. These two pages carry a full map of the continental United States and illustrate the main highways crisscrossing the country. On one page, she lists in order the states that they passed through.

The pages are full of black and white photographs, many showing a warm sepia tone. They depict individual family members they visited on their journey and scenes from places visited. Some photographs capture landscapes, others interesting historical sites and still others some of the fascinating characters they encountered on their travels.

For example, there are two pictures of a stage coach accompanied with a full description: 

“This coach was one of the first to carry the mail in Montana. Service then from Helena to Bozeman, being over a week, while now, over the railroad it is four times a day. This coach was captured by the Indians in 1877 and recaptured after a hot pursuit by General Howard. ... P.S. Grandma Spear and dad (then 9 years old) took a trip in a similar coach from Helena to Great Falls – a day trip 1885.”

Two pictures depict the “Gordon Stockade”. The Gordon Stockade, now a National Historic Site, was a temporary fort for 28 illegal gold miners in 1874. With a colourful history, the fort, which took 6 weeks to build, was demolished in 2004 to make way for a reconstruction – which took 6 years to complete. Her photographs show the aspects of the original fort along with a written explanation of its history.

Another picture is of Dunraven Pass in Yellowstone National Park. Today’s modern highway is shown as it was in 1930 – a rutted, dirt road.

For a historian, this is a superb pictorial record of life across America before WWII. It offers a wonderful look at a world now long gone. Of particular interest is the cover. This photo album was produced for the Yellowstone Park area and is imprinted with a colourful wildlife scene accompanied by a poem entitled Where The West Begins.

This album measures 7 inches by 10.75 inches. It contains 50 pages and is 100% complete. The cover is a soft leather in 2 shades. The main part is a medium brown with a rich, dark leather accent on the spine. The binding consists of 2 leather laces. The pages are black with extensive notations in white ink. The pages show some wear along the edges and the leather has a soft texture. The handwriting is legible.