Tuesday, February 21, 2017

America at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

Gold’s Curio Store in Santa Fe, New Mexico, circa 1897


This was the first Indian curio business established in Santa Fe.  The ramshackle old adobe building with wood carrying burros in front of and or around the corner on Burro Alley made this innovative curio shop on San Francisco street a favorite subject for photographers of the late 19th century.  Jake Gold, a brilliant salesman, cast himself as a man worthy of a souvenir portrait card as a moustached, frilly leather jacketed rugged frontiersman complete with a muzzle-loaded pistol stuck in his braided sash belt.  He was equally colorful in discourse, “The tourists want to hear tales, and I am here to administer the same.”

Wilford’s Trading Post


Thanks again to Pink and this one is another abomination of colorization but the much bigger story is this wasn't that long ago.  A century is hardly a geological time scale and there may even be a few people who are still alive from that time.

Check out the large poster on the right since it advertises 'new monster shows' so we wonder what were the old monsters and what new monsters will they reveal next.  See the monsters of the Wild West right here at Gold's Curiosity Shop.

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