Here we have Mission San José de Tumacácori near Nogales, Arizona. The name translates as ‘The Mission of Saint Joseph of the Rocky Flat Place’. First established in 1691 at a nearby location, it was relocated at the present location about 1751 after an Indian uprising led to the destruction of the original mission. Today it is part of Tumacácori National Historical Park, and also designated a National Historic Landmark.

This public domain image was taken about 1872-73. The photographer was Carlo Gentile (also known as Charles Gentile). Born in Italy in 1835, Carlo came to Canada and later the United States. He was widely known as a Western landscape photographer, and also known for his portrait images of Native Americans. There is biography of this available available from Amazon.

This is a nice public domain image of Egyptian ruins. The site is sometimes spelled Medinet Habu. On the large version (just click on the image above to see the full sized version) you can see the shadowed wall is covered in hieroglyphs. This is part of one of the courtyards in the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III. Modern photos show the cracks have been filled-in and the rubble removed. There are six of of these images of Ramesses III along one wall of the courtyard, with a hallway running along behind them. Two of the statues are nearly gone, like the right one here, and two more have the upper half missing.

This photograph was taken by the famed English photographer, Francis Frith (1822-1898), in the late 1850s. Frith, a founding member of the Liverpool Photographic Society, married Mary Ann Rosling (sister of Alfred Rosling, the first treasurer of the Photographic Society). While his mid-Eastern views are well known and highly appreciated, it is the local U.K. photographs he took that brought him to fame. He set out to photograph every village and town in Britain, paying particular attention to notable or historic features. He started a company, ‘F. Frith & Co.’ in the 1860s that lasted over 100 years. They published most of his images as postcards, which helped to make those images, and Frith, widely known.

The Sultanahmet, or as it is known in English Sultan Ahmed Mosque, is located in Istanbul, and is one of the major tourist attractions in that city. Also known as the ‘Blue Mosque’ it was built between 1609 and 1616 by the Sultan Ahmed the First, who is buried there. Also visible in this public domain image is an obelisk and the Serpent column in the Hippodrome — the center of a race track when the city was known as Constantinople, and later a park. The obelisk is the upper part of an Egyptian monument from the Temple of Karnak in Luxor, originally erected during the reign of Tuthmosis III in about 1490 BC. The Serpent column was a Greek monument erected in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in the 5th century B.C. to celebrate victory over the Persians.

The photographer who took this image was Ali Riza Pasa who studied photography at the Imperial College of Engineers and was appointed as one of the official photographers of the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Abdul-Hamid II in the 1880s (in addition to his military duties). This picture was taken between 1880 and 1893.

Here is another public domain image of a lighthouse, this one the Peck’s Ledge Lighthouse, sometimes just called Peck Ledge Lighthouse. This photograph comes from just after the lighthouse was completed in 1906. Peck’s Ledge is in Long Island Sound, about two miles from the mouth of Norwalk Harbor in Connecticut. There was a lighthouse keeper living here from 1906 to 1933 when the light was automated. It continues to operate today. Comparing this photo to modern images of the lighthouse, we see that the roof over the first floor balcony has been removed, as well as the pole next to the light (not sure what the heck that was for anyhow…)

This photo was taken by George S North. George was born in Connecticut about 1842, and took up photography in the 1860s, working at first with his brother Frederic in Chatham Connecticut. In the 1870s the brothers parted ways, Frederic opened a studio in Vernon Connecticut, and George worked as a photographer in Norwalk. For more than 50 years George S North was a photographer in Norwalk, the last mention of him we find is in the 1920 census, when he was 78 years old, and still listed as a photographer.

Here is a nice view of the lighthouse that was built on the east end of Eagle Island in 1839. Eagle Island is in Penobscot Bay, and the lighthouse was constructed to help ships navigate into Bangor, which was establishing itself as a major lumber shipping port. The first light burned whale oil, and emitted a steady white light. The light was automated in 1959, so the Coast Guard tore the house down in 1964. The light tower still stands, though today there are so many trees it can only be seen from out in the bay.

The photograph was taken by Joseph John Kirkbride (1842-1899) about 1890. Kirkbride was not a professional photographer, but a talented amateur. He was a physician from Philadelphia, and the son of Thomas S Kirkbride, M.D., who had been physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. In the 1860 census their house is the next listing after the list of inmates, so they must have lived next-door to the asylum.