Long-lost Placer County captured by the legendary Ansel Adams

(FOX40.COM) — In the archives of the Crocker Art Museum sit 22 photos of a place that most Placer County residents wouldn’t know today, taken by a man who is legendary in the world of photography and captured at a turning point in the natural landscapes of the Sacramento region.

Southern Placer County in the early 1960s was much like it had been for most of the 20th century, small-town living with seemingly limitless natural spaces where farmers would let their herds graze.

The railroad had brought a fair amount of development to the downtowns of Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln, but on the fringes of these communities, the countryside was still seemingly untouched.

This is where famed photographer Ansel Adams found himself in 1962, on the fringes of Rocklin on the land that today is known as Whitney Oaks.

These 12,000 acres were once a part of the sprawling 20,000-acre Spring Valley Ranch once owned by Joel Parker Whitney. They were purchased in 1960 by Sunset International Petroleum Corporation to develop into a self-sustaining metropolis supporting 100,000 residents.

The beauty of the rolling hills, mighty oaks and unique rock outcroppings drew in the would-be developers as they figured it might be appealing to those looking to escape the life of the city.

However, they needed to get people to want to buy homes, so they hired Adams to capture the natural beauty of what they called Sunset City.

In a 2004 article from the Placer Herald, former assistant vice president at Sunset, Dale Stringfellow, was cited saying, “I introduced Ansel Adams to the property and over the next few days, I came to realize what a very special person he was. Not just a great photographer, which he was the greatest, but the feeling, the tenderness, the passion he had for the land was overwhelming, and that’s why his photographs of natives are still unequaled.”

Adams arrived sometime in the spring of 1962 and began his months-long project of capturing the sprawling landscape of what was planned to be Sunset City.

He was hired to take 15 images but enjoyed the location so much that he added another 7, according to a letter written by Adams to the then-director of the Crocker Museum, Frank Kent.

At this point in his career, Adams had been a professional photographer for 40 years after making his first photo sale in 1922 in New York.

He had worked with the National Park Service in capturing some of the most stunning natural scenes in the United States to get people outside and have a greater appreciation for the environment.

This work would lead to Adams becoming a well-known environmentalist and a nationally-celebrated landscape photographer.

Adams completed the Sunset City project sometime in 1962 or 1963, but by 1965 a lack of home sales caused Sunset Petroleum to shut down the idea of Sunset City entirely.

How the photos ended up in the archives of the Crocker Art Museum is a bit unclear, but it is agreed by local historians and the museum that they were gifted to the long-standing art collectors.

According to the Rocklin Historical Society, all 22 photos were gifted to the Crocker in 1965 or 1966 by Stringfellow after the failed plans of Sunset City.

Stringfellow is also said to have placed conditions on the photos that they would be permanently on display.

Curators at the Crocker told FOX40.com that it is unlikely that they would accept those conditions due to the need to let the photos rest for some years after being on display for just a few months.

FOX40.com reached out to the Rocklin Historical Society to see if they have any records of the correspondence between the Crocker and Stringfellow.

The historical society said that they do not have a direct correspondence between the Crocker and Stringfellow, but part of what could have been an email sent from Stringfellow to former Placer Herald writer Gary Day for his 2004 article.

The quoted section of Stringfellow’s message is a retelling of the alleged agreement between Sunset Petroleum and the Crocker.

The Crocker has the timeline of the gifting moved up a few years and not including Sunset Petroleum. Instead, the images were gifted by Adams to the Crocker.

In their archives, the Crocker has a letter from Adams to the then Director of the Crocker Museum Frank Kent and a second letter from Kent to Adams.

The first letter is dated May 29, 1963, where Adams describes his experience taking the photos and working with Sunset Petroleum.

He said the images were sent via “Rail Express” to the gallery.

On June 12, 1963, Kent responded to Adams’ letter saying that he received the collection and how pleased he was to add the “quality” images to the Crocker’s photography collection.

“They are beautifully mounted and will be a formidable asset to the print collection of the Crocker Art Gallery,” Kent wrote to Adams.

Nowhere in the letter does Adams place conditions on how the images are to be displayed and he only suggests they be viewed as a collection with only a few of them meriting a solo showing.

In 2007, the images would be shown for the first and only time as a full collection to the public by the Crocker.

Curators at the Crocker said that from time to time individual photos from the collection will be displayed to complement other shows.

On Dec. 1, 2023, for the first time in 16 years, all 22 images were brought together to be shown privately for FOX40.com to take images for this article.

Regardless of how the images ended up at the Crocker or how often they are shown, these images represent a place and time that will never be seen again in Southern Placer County.

Much of Adams’ work is of landscapes that have been federally protected and will likely never see development or drastic change for centuries.

The Placer County that Adams captured in the early 1960s would only last for another 30 years or so as suburbia spread from the downtown core into the once-fringe areas of the countryside.

Fortunately, Adams gave as much care and love to this collection of photos as his previous projects and captured a relatively unknown place with such beauty for all to enjoy for centuries to come.