Rare photo archive donation shows glory of Yosemite National Park in 1903

"El Capitan, Yosemite" by C.F. Oehler. These lantern slides of Yosemite National Park were donated to the park's photo archives and show slices of life from 1903. "El Capitan, Yosemite" by C.F. Oehler. These lantern slides of Yosemite National Park were donated to the park's photo archives and show slices of life from 1903. Photo: Charles F. Oehler / Yosemite National Park Archives Photo: Charles F. Oehler / Yosemite National Park Archives Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Rare photo archive donation shows glory of Yosemite National Park in 1903 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

The slides arrived in what looked to be a handmade wooden box labeled, "Yosemite 1903."

Inside lay a total of 120 slides depicting life in Yosemite National Park in the early 1900s at iconic locations like Half Dome, Nevada Falls and El Capitan. Yosemite had become only the third national park in the United States just 13 years before, and a man by the name of Charles F. Oehler set about taking photos of the park, which were passed on through the generations of Oehler's family and donated by his grandsons.

About 89 of the slides were original photos taken by Oehler, with each painstakingly painted to add details like a multi-hued sunset or a rainbow curving over Bridal Veil Falls. Also known as lantern slides, each individual slide is a photo negative pressed between two pieces of glass and used in a projector known as a magic lantern, which could then be shown to groups of people.

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Amy McKinney, the Archives Technician with Yosemite National Park who is working with the lantern slides, remarked on the unique character and details of the slides. "The methods are so different of how they're capturing photography... and then someone [took] the time to go back in and hand draw in the little rainbows and sunset."

McKinney's team meticulously scanned and documented each slide from the donation and is working to place the photos online as part of the park's online digital archives. (Other slides in the collection include photos of Yosemite Park made by other photographers from the same time period.)

"It's really fun to see how things are very similar to what they looked like a hundred years ago," McKinney said of the images.

Take a look back in time at a small selection of the slides made by Oehler in the slideshow above, and explore more of Yosemite's photo archives here.

Dianne de Guzman is a Digital Editor at SFGATE. Email: dianne.deguzman@sfgate.com