The photos, by Timothy O'Sullivan, are the first ever taken of the rocky and barren landscape.
At the time federal government officials were travelling across Arizona, Nevada, Utah and the rest of the west as they sought to uncover the land's untapped natural resources.
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19th century housing: Members of Clarence King's Fortieth Parallel
Survey team explore the land near Oreana, Nevada, in 1867. Clarence King
was a 25-year-old Yale graduate, who hired Irish tough guy O'Sullivan
for his Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. Funded by the
War Department, the plan was to survey the unexplored territory that lay
between the California Sierras and the Rockies, with a view toward
finding a good place to lay railroad tracks while also looking for
mining possibilities and assessing the level of Indian hostility in the
area.
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Incredible: Tents can be seen (bottom, centre) at a point known as Camp
Beauty close to canyon walls in Canyon de Chelly National Monument,
Arizona. Photographed in 1873 and situated in northeastern Arizona, the
area is one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes in North
American and holds preserved ruins of early indigenous people's such as
The Anasazi and Navajo.
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On this rock I build a church: Old Mission Church, Zuni Pueblo, New
Mexico pictured in 1873 where the Zuni people of North have lived for
millennia. O'Sullivan was famous for not trying to romanticise the
native American plight or way of life in his photographs and instead of
asking them to wear tribal dress was happy to photograph them wearing
denim jeans.
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Land rising from the water: The Pyramid and Domes, a line of dome-shaped
tufa rocks in Pyramid Lake, Nevada photographed in 1867. Taken as part
of Clarence King's Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel,
O'Sullivan's mesmerising pictures of the other-wordly rock formations at
Pyramid Lake committed the sacred native American Indian site to camera
for the first time
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