Welcome to Carleton Watkins Stereoviews

Watkins Pacific Railroad
The race to build the trans-continental railroad is captured in 364 stereoviews taken during construction from 1864 to 1869.

Unknown stereoviews
Browse the untitled and unnumbered stereoviews to see if you can help identify these unknowns.

Carleton Watkins —
A short biography
Learn about Watkins life and his incredible contribution to Western photography in the nineteenth century.

The work of historian
Peter Palmquist
Palmquist began the task of compiling Watkins stereoview titles during the 1970's. This website continues the goal of cataloging Watkins views.

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Welcome to the
Stereoviews of Carleton Watkins

Carleton Eugene Watkins (1829-1916) was one of the most highly acclaimed of early western photo-graphers, yet Watkins work has never been fully cataloged. No complete listings of his "Old Series" stereoviews, published before 1875, are known. This site brings together collections of Watkins work in the stereo format.

Begin your visit with An Introduction to the Stereoview Titles, or jump directly to the catalog listings:
     - Watkins Early Series of Stereoviews
     - Watkins New Series
     - Watkins Pacific Railroad

Traveling photo wagon of C.E. Watkins

Watkins extensively photographed early San Francisco, Yosemite, Mendocino, New Almaden and the Sierra Nevada mining regions. He also made some of the earliest photographs of Southern California and the Pacific Nortwest.

We hope you enjoy this compilation of California and the West in its early years.