Saturday, August 23, 2025

From the Archives: The 1938 Great New England Hurricane and Marblehead Neck

Hurricanes


The Great New England Hurricane of September 1938 was one of the most destructive storms to hit Long Island and New England in the 20th century. It caused massive damage to coastal communities and inland forests of a degree that no residents had ever experienced in their lifetimes. Throughout New York and New England, the wind and water dropped 275 million trees, seriously damaged more than 200,000 buildings, knocked trains off their tracks, and beached thousands of boats. Wind and rain damage extended as far north as Rutland, Vermont. Entire city blocks burned in New London and other industrial towns, and downtown Providence, Hartford, and other cities were flooded. 

New England had suffered from hurricanes before 1938, and several times since then. Even Governor Bradford of the Boston Bay wrote about such a storm in 1635 in his diary. I wrote about the 1938 hurricane in a 2022 blog entry, and you can read a longer article in the Journal of Coastal Research, available via BioOne Digital.

My father worked at Providence District of the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1938. But he had been assigned to stream gaging and inspection along the Connecticut river and missed downtown Providence being inundated by the storm surge. I found only a few negatives in his archives showing some damage to a shoe road in Winthrop, Massachusetts. And, surprisingly, I only found one Providence negative. Are there more in his boxes of negatives?


Providence, Rhode Island



This photograph shows Fox Point in Providence, Rhode Island. I thought I recognized the distant gas storage tank on the right. This, or newer tanks, can be seen near I-95 south of downtown Providence. But I could not find the railroad tracks on contemporary maps. 

It took some diligent detective work by a friend to positively identify the location. He looked at Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America by Thomas J. Campanella (Princeton Architectural Press, 2001). Photographers of the Fairchild Aerial Survey company took these superb aerial photographs over a period of five decades. You can buy a copy on Amazon. The 25 August 1929 photograph of Providence told the story. The annotation shows the features that you see in my dad's view with the sailing vessel. Click the picture to see the details.



I was confused by contemporary Google maps because I could not find any evidence of the railroad tracks that you see in my dad's photograph. The tracks are now gone, and the right-of-way is buried under I-195, which runs east-west across the southern edge of Fox Point. But where did these former waterfront tracks go? Where was cargo shipped? A Google map created by author Kayakhomeless shows the historic heavy rail lines superimposed on a contemporary map. 



The black lines show heavy rail (not trolley rail). From the east, the tracks crossed the Seekonk River and ran south along the shore of Fox Point and then turned north along the east shore of the river. All this track is now gone. On the east side of the Seekonk River, the track diverged. 1. Heading south along the east side of the Providence River, thie rail line has been converted into the superb East Bay Bike Path.  2. Heading north, the track crossed the river again on a bascule bridge, and entered the East Side Railroad Tunnel. The tunnel is no longer in use, but it still runs under the city below Brown University. 

One can chase many interesting leads trying to identify features on old photographs.


Winthrop, Massachusetts



The surge and waves from the 1938 hurricane undermined the seawall and road foundation in Winthrop. Note how in that era, children and curious onlookers were free to climb on the rubble. 


Marblehead Neck, Massachusetts


Marblehead Neck is a rocky peninsula that projects into Massachusetts Bay. The geology consists of Late Proterozoic igneous and volcanic rocks belonging to the Avalon terrane. The rock has been modified by faulting and erosion, with glacial activity leaving the granite marred and exposed.

The Neck was considered an elegant place to have a summer "cottage" early in the 20th century. Today, it is lined with mansions, some of which are ostentatious and grotesque. The perils of wealth.



My dad took this picture from Castle Rock Park looking north. I have been unable to find any information about this unusual moderne beach home. Its spectacular setting on the rocks now hosts a more ordinary New England home. 


The mansion with the tower was called Questenmere. Mr. Fred McQuesten, a timber magnate, built the house in 1906. He died in the house in 1923. The house survived into the 1930s and had been renamed Tioga Towers, but I can't find any more information. 

This ends our short 1938 tour of the New England shore. Possibly there are more negative from this era showing Providence or the New England coast. 

These negative were from a film pack with 2¼ × 3¼"sheets. A film pack was a metal box containing 12 or 16 thin sheets. Each was attached to a paper pull tab. The photographer pulled the tab after he took a photograph, and the negative slid around the inside of the box to the back. I explained how this worked when I used 4 × 5" Versapan pack films. I wrote about them in 35mmc and on this blog. I scanned the negatives with an Epson Perfection 3200 Photo flat bed scanner using the Epson software. 


Saturday, August 16, 2025

Film Processing Envelopes from the 1930s

Film processing was an enormous business for most of the 20th century. Thousands of companies around the country and around the world handled sales of film and supplies, processing, printing, and reprinting for professionals and amateurs. For many companies in the USA, the customer walked up to a counter and gave a clerk his/her rolls of film. After a day or two, the customer returned and picked up an envelope or folder containing the prints and negatives. Here are some of the envelopes that I found among my father's boxes of negatives. He became an enthusiastic photographer around 1928, when he was in college in the Boston area. 


Boston Area


1929
1929 or 1930
1939
1939
Approx. 1944



Huntington, West Virginia




No phone number printed on the envelope? From 1930, when my dad first moved to Huntington. He had not traveled far beyond Boston and Rhode Island, so West Virginia must have been an adventure.




Note how Premier Studio prominently wrote "Kodaks" on their envelope in an attempt to confuse customers. Premier may have used Kodak paper or chemicals, but the term on the envelope was deceptive. Premier was more modern than Hoback's and listed a 4-digit telephone number, 9197.


St. Louis, Missouri


1935 but a 1931 price list

This information sheet appears to be from a legitimate Eastman Kodak store. Notice that they developed film packs. These were popular mid-century because a user could take 16 pictures in quick succession. My dad's Certo-Sport used film packs. I tried it once around 1970, so at least then, the 16-exposure packs were still sold new.



This Agfa box states Made in USA and includes a yellow insert showing "Speedex Ansco Film." It was size 116 for impressive size negatives. Mike Eckman dot com summarized the complicated history of Ansco, Agfa, and GAF company, which made film and several models of cameras. I do not know if my dad had an Ansco camera.


Worcester, Massachusetts


Approx. 1936


Hartford, Connecticut


1938


Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


1940

My dad never lived in Philadelphia, so I do not know why he had film developed there.


Providence, Rhode Island



I believe these negatives were from a shop in Providence, Rhode Island, because they contained some photographs of seawall damage caused by the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. I will post some of them in a later article.

This ends our quick tour of processing envelopes. If I find more in the family archives (= endless stuff), I will post them later.



Saturday, August 9, 2025

Small Towns in Washington: Packwood

Packwood is an unincorporated community in eastern Lewis County, Washington. It is popular with tourists because of the proximity to Mounts Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens. Many travelers probably zip on by on US 12, but there are some oddly painted houses and shops along 12.



Maybe Bigfoot will pump gas and clean your windshield.



This is just a hint of the local architecture. The overcast light and drizzle helped make the colors stand out. I need to return and do another pass through town.

I took these pictures on Kodak Portra 160 film with my Pentax MG camera and a 50mm ƒ/2 Ricoh Rikenon lens. This is a 6-element double Gauss design, quite conventional for the 1980s. Some elements may be multicoated. This was a $25 lens that really surprised me. Some of these 1980s optics are fully functional and still remarkable bargains. Eventually, these bargains will run out.

Saturday, August 2, 2025

The Leica IIIG in Oregon and Eastern Washington (May 2025) (Abandoned Films 13d).

We were restless after a very wet March in Olympia. It was time for a road trip. And I wanted to exercise my Leica IIIG camera and try Kodak T400CN film again. Some of these expired rolls have looked fine, but others have deteriorated. The rolls I used in Greece looked great. I should give up on this long-expired film forever, but thought I would try one last  roll. I loaded a roll in the IIIG for some of the great expanses of Washington state east of the Cascades (plus an overnight in The Dalles in Oregon). 


The Dalles, Oregon



The Dalles is a busy rail junction. But areas of this rail yard now have bare sections and unused tracks.  Still, an interesting place. The mill became a winery?


Waiting for a horse

Columbia Hills State Park


Cross the Columbia River, drive past Dallesport, and ascent a gravel road up into the Columbia Hills. In contrast to the forested mountains of the Columbia Gorge closer to Portland, these hills are in the rain shadow and are a dry terrain. The area is famous for wildflowers in early spring.


Dalles Mountain Ranch (50mm ƒ/1.8 Canon lens, yellow-green filter)


Farmland and the Palouse, Washington


Head east out of Richland, and you drive through miles and miles of beautiful rich farmland. As you continue east, you enter a land of hummocky low hills composed of loess (wind-blown silt). This is the Palouse. It encompasses parts of western Idaho and central east Washington. 


Rail junction, Roosevelt (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 thread-mount lens, orange filter)
Pasco-Kahlotus Road north of Pasco (50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens)
Historic schoolhouse, Pasco-Kahlotus Road (Jupiter-8 lens)
Silo, Kahlotus (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter)
Grain terminal, Oaksdale (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter)

The Grain Train, Oaksdale

This roll of T400CN was thin, and once again, it may have been mis-development by Photoland at The Evergreen State College. I will not use their services ever again. This old T400CN is grainy, probably much more so than when it was fresh. But I still like the tonality, and the ICE scratch removal in my Nikon Coolscan 5000ED scanner is a great convenience. As a substitute, I can try Ilford XP2, which is the only C-41 black and white film still in production. 


Saturday, July 26, 2025

Back to the West: Aberdeen, Hoquiam, and Grays Harbor, Washington (2024)

Aberdeen and Hoquiam are interesting old cities near Grays Harbor, Washington. They offer some of the topics that I like to photograph. Here are some more summer 2024 examples.


Aberdeen


No more free WiFi here, West Wishkah Street (Hasselblad 501CM camera, 100mm ƒ/3.5 Planar lens)
Fixer-upper motel, West Wishkah Street
Rental cottages, Sumner Avenue
Northern Pacific Railroad swing bridge over the Wishkah River 
View of South F Street under the Northern Pacific Railroad swing bridge (100mm ƒ/3.5 Planar lens)

Hoquiam


Tug, Hoquiam River (50mm Distagon lens, yellow filter)
Lift bridge, Hoquiam River (100mm ƒ/3.5 Planar lens, yellow filter)

Grayland


Pump house at cranberry farm, Cranberry Road, Grayland (80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB, 1/8 sec. ƒ/11.5, yellow filter)
Patrol chicken, Evergreen Park Road, Grayland (40mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)

This ends this short trip to towns near Grays Harbor. There is more to see - time to return and explore some more.

I took these photographs on Kodak Panatomic-X film (expired 1989) using my Hasselblad 501CM camera and various lenses. All were tripod-mounted. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta ScanMulti film scanner.


Saturday, July 19, 2025

On the Waterfront: the Duwamish Waterway and Port of Seattle, Washington (Sea 07)

The Duwamish Waterway (river) flows into Elliot Bay along the base of the glacial drumlin that forms West Seattle. The mouth of the Waterway has been extensively modified to create the Port of Seattle. The city created Harbor Island and the other terminals by dredging and filling over the last century. This is a busy commercial harbor with container and bulk terminals. But I was surprised to find that the city has been preserving small parks and wetlands in the industrial zone. And bicycle paths let you bike along large sections of the shore, passing through or around the commercial terminals.  

March 2, 2025, was not raining, a good day to drive to the city and explore the waterfront. It was a cloudy Pacific Northwest winter day, the sky was overcast, and the light was blue.  Click any photograph to see it at 2400 pixels wide.


Port of Seattle and Harbor Island shore, view east
Seattle from Jack Block Park viewing tower
Port of Seattle view north (55mm ƒ/1.8 SMC Takumar lens)
Terminal 5 from Jack Block Park, view south (55mm ƒ/1.8 SMC Takumar lens)
Terminal 5, view south
Don't eat the oysters; Duwamish Waterway view northeast towards Seattle
Duwamish Waterway and Ash Grove Cement Seattle Plant (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens)

Duwamish Waterway from Harbor Island Marina with West Seattle Bridge in distance
Rail car, West Marginal Way (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens)
Work barges, Kellogg Island, from həʔapus Village Park & Shoreline Habitat (135mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens) 
Bicycle club members

I met these gents in the viewing tower at Jack Block Park. They had biked all the way from Lake Union along the Seattle waterfront. They belonged to a club and were in their 70s and 80s. Two of them had ridden through the new Rte 99 tunnel (under the waterfront) on the official opening day when it was open for bicycles.

I took these pictures with my Pentax Spotmatic F camera on Kodak Ektar 100 film, exposed at EI=64. This is a high contrast color negative film, which I find it hard to use. The scans from my Nikon Coolscan 500 ED scanner had too much blue. I used skylight filters on the lenses, but an even warmer filter, like an 81B or 81C would have helped. I corrected the colors as well as I could with the neutral grey dropper tool in Photoshop 6. 

This is Seattle article no. 07.