Shots making harbor history

Luis Pena

If you could display only 40 out of more than 80,000 images, which 40

would they be?

Officials at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum had to decide just

that, and they started by deciding on shots from their vast

collection of photographer William C. “Bill” Sawyer.

And that still meant choosing from some 47,080 photos.

Sawyer began visiting Southern California in 1897 and moved from

Vermont to Los Angeles in 1914, said Glen Zagoren, chief executive of

the museum.

The Sawyer photographs are unusual because they focus on

recreational yachting rather than merchant and Navy vessels, Zagoren

said. Photos of yachts, movie stars such as Errol Flynn, early harbor

views and races are just some of the scenes represented within his

collection. The photos on display are from 1915 through 1954.

The majority of the Sawyer collection is from Newport Beach.

Because of the voluminous number, the museum is seeking grants to pay

for transferring them into a digital catalog. Zagoren said it could

take as long as five years to catalog.

The photos are on display at the museum indefinitely. Some might

be alternated eventually.

The oldest image in the museum’s compilation is of the ship

Vaquero, taken in the harbor in 1870.

“No other photographer was able to so vividly and completely

capture the history of pleasure boating between Santa Barbara and San

Diego in parallel with its development,” said Marcus De Chevrieux,

curator of the museum.

The museum receives phone calls not only from researchers but also

from yachtsmen who have bought boats in its photographs. One man

purchased a boat that was in the 1936 Olympics and wanted photographs

of it so he could restore it, said Ann Wattson, registrar at the

museum.

Sawyer was an engineer with the city of Los Angeles while busy

taking photographs of Newport Beach. He would take the famous old Red

Car trolley into Balboa every weekend to take photos, Zagoren said.

Wattson remembers seeing Sawyer wearing his trademark, all-black

suit and high-tops, along with his large-format camera, on top of the

Balboa Pavilion taking shots.