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Black Cañon, Colorado River, looking below, near Camp 7 / T.H. O'Sullivan, phot.

Library of Congress · 1875 · Timothy H. O'Sullivan

Dark canyon walls close in over a still river with a single pale boulder midstream; the albumen print is mounted under a War Department Corps of Engineers seal with its caption printed beneath.
From the archive · Library of Congress · 1875 Black Cañon, Colorado River, looking below, near Camp 7 / T.H. O'Sullivan, phot. Timothy H. O'Sullivan

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-10015 No known restrictions on publication. Archive record ↗ · Rights

Source Archival record · verify at Library of Congress ↗

Timothy O'Sullivan on the Wheeler Survey, in the Black Cañon of the Colorado. The reach is under Lake Mead now. The mount is a War Department object -- seal at the top, caption set in type at the foot.

Shows: A stretch of the Colorado as the first survey photographers found it, and how the government published what they brought back.

What this does not let you conclude: The river today. Hoover Dam closed in 1935 and this water is now reservoir; nothing here is evidence about present flows. The print is dated 1875; the mount reads 'Expedition of 1871: Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, Comdg.'

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The archive’s record did not answer our check on 2026-10-12 (refused automated check, HTTP 403). Our copy above is unaffected; the credit stands. A person will look.

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