Lots of photos exist from Boulder’s early days, including many taken by Joseph B. Sturtevant between 1884 and 1910. However, an 1866 photo of Pearl Street clearly bears his name, and it wasn’t taken by him at all.

On March 20, 1889, the editor of the Boulder County Herald wrote, “In the rubbish, at a second-hand store, Joseph Sturtevant found an old photograph which he would not sell for $20. It was taken in Boulder in 1866.”

Sturtevant re-photographed the image, then wrote his name on his own glass plate negative. Although his action confuses today’s historians, the prolific photographer did us a service by allowing us to peer into the past.

The street scene freezes in time the north side of the 1200 block of Pearl Street, only seven years after gold prospectors founded the frontier town. Frozen, too, are the passersby, as lengthy exposures required everyone to stand still.

The Colorado House Hotel is prominent in the foreground, on the northwest corner of Pearl and 13th streets. Built in 1863, the two-story white frame structure was demolished in 1881 and replaced with the first of several bank buildings. The site is now occupied by Capital One Café.

When Sturtevant pulled the photo from the trash, his discovery sparked interest among newspaper readers. A subsequent article stated that Boulder resident Ephraim Pound (formerly a shop-keeper in the Colorado House) identified a young girl in the photo as Fannie Bixby, daughter of postmaster Amos Bixby.

The few women in the photo are wearing stylish and voluminous post-Civil War-era hoop skirts, even though they must have been difficult to keep clean on Boulder’s muddy and dusty streets.

Several men posed, as well. The ones in laborers’ clothing likely are miners or farmers in town for supplies, while those in suits are the bankers and merchants.

One man is standing on one of three horse-drawn wagons.

Next to the Colorado House, where the Peppercorn is now, is a pig sty. To the west is a small building that later became a Chinese laundry. Then there are more animal enclosures.

The two-story building at the end of the 1200 block was the first commercial brick building in Boulder, jointly owned, at the time, by early civic leaders Charles Dabney and Andrew J. Macky (namesake of University of Colorado’s Macky Auditorium). After a fire, Dabney’s half eventually was replaced with the still-standing Mercantile Bank Building (on the northeast corner of today’s Broadway and Pearl streets).

Macky demolished and rebuilt his half with a larger, and still-standing, brick building at 1207 Pearl St. Potter’s Drug Store, followed by Potter’s Restaurant, was located there for many years.

West of 12th Street (now Broadway) are two more small buildings and then the Boulder House Hotel, on the northeast corner of Pearl and 11th streets. That hotel was Boulder’s first, replaced by what’s now the Buckingham Block that houses Boulder Book Store and several other retail businesses.

The original image most likely was taken by Robert L. Thompson, the only photographer who advertised his services in Boulder at the time. As to who put the photo in the trash, and why, the answers remain a mystery.

Carol Taylor and Silvia Pettem write about history for the Daily Camera. Email Carol at boulderhistorylibrarian@gmail.com, Silvia at pettem@earthlink.net or write to the Daily Camera, 2500 55th St., Suite 210, Boulder, 80301.