[Vernacular Photograph Album Kept by D. Watson of the 8th United States Cavalry During the Texas Border War]

[Various locations in Texas, 1918. Very good.. Fifteen leaves, illustrated with fifty-five mounted photographs, and a few ephemeral clippings identifying locations. Oblong octavo. Contemporary black cloth, string-tied. Light soiling to covers. Minor wear to some photographs, but overall a handsome selection. A unique collection of vernacular photographs collected by a soldier in the 8th U.S. Cavalry identified simply as D. Watson, serving in southwest Texas during the Mexican Border War. The first two pictures emanate from Quartermaster Training Camp in Jacksonville, Florida. This is followed by one photo from Barron Field in Everman, Texas. The remaining photographs document Watson's time in Ruidosa, Texas, an unincorporated Texas-Mexico border town in Presidio County, about a hundred miles from Terlingua. Here, Watson includes photographs of himself and other soldiers and their horses posed in front of old stone structures, in orange groves, amongst canyons, in front of an automobile, and more, with images of Mexican adobes, a wagon advertising an "electric light company," the cavalry preparing their horses, scenes of the wilds of southwest Texas, and the E.H. Carlton company store. E.H. Carlton was also a principal in the Carlton Van Loan Company, an oil speculation firm active in the 1920s. An eclectic and intriguing selection of Texas-Mexico border images from an important period in history.