Library of Congress
Muybridge's panorama was probably sold widely in the 19th century, but today it's considered rare.
- A vintage panorama of San Francisco in 1877 recently sold at an auction for nearly $14,000.
- The photo gives a rare glimpse of the city before most of it was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.
- Some neighborhoods, like Telegraph Hill, look similar today, but many of the city's ornate mansions and cobblestone streets are gone.
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We have only a faint picture of what San Francisco looked like before the 1906 earthquake. The 7.9-magnitude quake and subsequent fire destroyed 80% of the city and killed more than 3,000 people, making it the deadliest disaster in California history.
So when a rare 1877 panorama of the city was put up for auction earlier this month, it sold for nearly $14,000.
The image consists of 11 prints taken by Eadweard Muybridge, a photographer known for his stop-motion shots of animals. Some people credit him as the father of the motion picture, but Muybridge was also responsible for preserving many of San Francisco's historic buildings on camera. At the time his panorama was published, an accordion-folded version would have sold for about $10 (around $2,400 today).
His photograph series captures a time of rapid development in San Francisco, when the city was erecting ornate hotels and mansions alongside modest homes and cable-car tracks. Some neighborhoods that appear in the panorama, like Telegraph Hill, look similar today, while others have been completely transformed.
Here's how the city captured in Muybridge's photographs compares to modern San Francisco.