Over on the California State Archives website there’s a terrific new collection of amateur travel photography by William and Grace McCarthy, San Franciscans who traveled widely, camera at the ready, between 1905 and 1938.

We’re still digging through their photo albums, but in the Los Angeles section gems are thick on the ground. It’s the most fun we’ve had gawking since Anton Wagner’s photos went online.

What will you find there? How about a rare 1916 view of D.W. Griffith’s Gates of Babylon set from Intolerance, with electric poles and small bungalows reminding us that the film was shot in the middle of Los Feliz, about where the Vista Theater stands today.

Note the smoke stains at the center of the flat at left, suggesting that the flames coming out of Griffith’s rolling siege towers, seen in the screen grab below, were real. It’s a wonder the cast of thousands survived.

Hollywood’s stately Cheateau-esque Rollin B. Lane residence appears comical with the Bernheimer Brothers’ Japanese pavilion looming above, a Disneyfied juxtaposition decades before Walt staked his claim on California fantasy architecture. The Lane mansion, much expanded, entered from the side and always by automobile, is the famed Magic Castle Club today, and the Bernheimer is Yamashiro Restaurant.

The intent with this shot was to capture the statue of Senator Stephen M. White, but we’ve never seen a better image of the filigree details at the entrance of the great Red Sandstone Courthouse (1891, demolished 1936), our favorite lost Downtown landmark. Much of that stone survives in City Terrace Park.

Thanks to Mike McPhate’s California Sun newsletter for the tip about the newly digitized collection, and to Audrey Fullerton-Samora, William and Grace McCarthy’s great niece, for her generous donation. Too often these kinds of archives are broken up for resale, their context lost.

William and Grace seem like fun people, and we’re awfully glad for the chance to see the world through their eyes. Cuddle up!