A Bird's Eye View from 1910

We are truly fortunate to have this photo of early Junction City from high above, and it gives us lots of information as to where many of the buildings that we only have photos of were located. The original photo was made with a large negative, and so we are able to crop in close to see more details. In fact, if you are viewing this on a touchscreen, we've included this at a high resolution so you can zoom in to see everything in detail. If you're on a desktop click the arrow when you hover over the photograph.

But wait....just how, exactly, did the photographer capture this image?

We see photographs like this all the time today, mostly by drones. But in 1910 there were no drones and airplanes were in their early years - and of course moved so fast that you could not take a photo from it. So, how did we get this amazing photo?

The answer was to go up in a tethered balloon. Of course, cameras in those days were large and heavy, and a person even more, so photographers needed tiny baskets to carry themselves high enough. This photo shows just how brave he would have to be to go that high while precariously balancing on the edge of the basket.

And oh yes....one more thing to keep in mind as you look at this photo: there had to be yet another foolhardy photographer next to him to take the picture!

Below are a few cropped versions for you to see details better.