The Hayden survey stereo view card.

Camping Out, Colorado. Kilburn 2951. Reprinted and re-issued view cards often have incomplete and misleading labeling. A little digging reveals that this is no ordinary camping party, but an 1877 foray into the Colorado Rockies by a team of botanists, wives and friends, guides and a cook, as part of the Hayden survey. The Harvard botanist Asa Gray [1810-1888] is seated on the ground, with a drying stack for plant specimens in his lap and other plant specimens lying nearby. Sitting on a chair near him is botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker [1817-1911], visitng from England. The photograph was taken by William Henry Jackson [1843-1942] at La Veta Pass, Colorado. Compare the better quality non-stereo picture below. Note that there are significant differences between the two, suggesting that Jackson posed his subjects and then took a number of photographs of the same scene.

These folks are fashionably dressed for an outing in the wilds of Colorado. One wonders how far they were from the nearest town.

This 2D picture is from the archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University. Information below mostly from that source.

July 1877 Pictures of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories under the direction of Ferdinand Vanderveer Hayden [1829-1887]. Photograph taken by William Henry Jackson [1843-1942] at La Veta Pass, Colorado.

Identifiable people in the picture, from left to right (mostly seated): Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker [1817-1911], Asa Gray [1810-1888] (seated on the ground), Mrs. Strachey, Jane Loring Gray (in white hat) [1821-1909], Captain Stevenson, Dr. Lanborn, General Strachey (standing, in black hat), Ferdinand Vanderveer Hayden [1829-1887].

I don't know whether this 2d photo was taken in 2d, or whether it is one half of a stereo pair. If anyone has a scan of a stereo exactly matching this shot, I'd be interested in seeing it, in any condition. If there is even a 2d of the other half of a stereo pair matching this half, these could be reunited into a 3d image.

In case you are wondering whether they all slept in this one small tent, here's the answer:

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