Buildings of [the] Fair Heirs in San Francisco. Original photographs of the pre-earthquake real estate holdings of the heirs of James Graham Fair

A real estate tycoon's San Francisco: this album documents approximately forty downtown San Francisco real estate holdings of the heirs of real estate, silver, and railroad magnate James Graham Fair. This album belonged to Fair's daughter Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt, first wife of William K. Vanderbilt II.

Most of the 39 original photographs are mounted with colored street maps locating the properties. The properties are mainly on San Francisco's major downtown streets including Market, Mission, Pacific, Post, Sutter, and Kearny.

This album provides a stunning visual record of San Francisco just before the 1906 earthquake and fires destroyed eighty percent of the city. The properties range from single-story wooden commercial structures to massive stone buildings occupying entire city blocks. Buildings include hotels, banks, saloons, residences, burlesque halls, theaters, a shooting gallery, cigar shops, groceries, and a billiard factory, often with poster-covered and paint-decorated facades. The scenes are typically filled with business signs, pedestrians, carriages, and wagons.

Original photographs depicting San Francisco just before the 1906 earthquake are rare in the market. This album provides an irreplaceable visual record of the city just before the disaster. Searches of WorldCat and Google turn up no other examples of Buildings of Fair Heirs in San Francisco, the title given on the binding.

Provenance: Virginia "Birdie" Fair Vanderbilt (1875-1935). The properties documented in the album were presumably originally purchased by James Graham Fair (1831-1894). Fair made his first fortune in the Comstock Lode and then became a major figure in California real estate and railroads. His daughter Virginia Graham Fair married William K. Vanderbilt II in 1899, and this album remained in the family for more than a century.

39 gelatin silver prints (most approx. 6 x 8 in., with two panoramic views, 3 ¾ x 11 in.), each mounted on card with a manuscript map locating the property. Typed index mounted at front. Contemporary oblong album (approx. 14 x 16 in.) bound in black leather, gilt-lettered Buildings of Fair Heirs in San Francisco. Rebacked. Some fading.