Ventura’s first close-up

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There he is, Ventura’s first professional photographer. John Calvin Brewster took this self-portrait in 1880, around the same time he started documenting Ventura County comings and goings through glass plate negative photographs.

A collection of Brewster’s photos, taken between 1874 and 1909 will be on display at the Museum of Ventura County, as part of a new exhibit opening Friday, April 25. “The Past on a Plate” free exhibit is at the museum’s new temporary site, 89 S. California St., and runs through August 17.

This photo shows the now-demolished Anacapa Hotel in 1898, at the intersection of Main and Palm streets in downtown Ventura.

The museum provided this history of the hotel:

Brewery owner and real estate investor Fridolin Hartman first invested in the building of the Anacapa Hotel in 1888 and, shortly after, took ownership of it. His sons Fridolin Jr. and George managed it. The hotel contained about 100 rooms, lighted by electricity.

The building of the Anacapa came in response to the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which sparked a land and population boom and made Ventura a tourist destination. As did the Rose Hotel, built in 1887, the Anacapa featured more luxurious commodities than any of the other hotels in town.

In addition to photographing some Ventura buildings and landscapes for the first time, Brewster also may have been among the first to recognize that teenage glamor shots were the way of the future. Here is a photograph Brewster took of his teenage daughter, Pansy Brewster.

Isn’t that a beaut?

*Photos courtesy of the Museum of Ventura County Research Library Collection.

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