Snapshots of the Past

Heart of Houston, from Little Frank's balloon – Antique Wall Art

Heart of Houston, from Little Frank's balloon, c1912. — historic photograph
Heart of Houston, from Little Frank's balloon, c1912.. Historic photograph from the Ballooning collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

This rare historic photograph captures Heart of Houston, from Little Frank's balloon in remarkable detail. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. It makes a striking addition to a living room, study or office, and a thoughtful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

Heart of Houston, from Little Frank's balloon

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Taken from a balloon, this view of downtown Houston shows the city from above in about 1912, when aerial photographs like this were still a novelty. The image was made from "Little Frank's" balloon, a name that points to the tethered or passenger ballooning popular at the time, and it was registered for copyright by Beach & Stern, a studio that sold views of American cities. Overhead pictures such as this one record how the street grid, rail lines and early commercial blocks of Houston looked before the skyline grew tall, making them valuable to historians of urban growth.

Created / publishedc1912.
Medium1 photographic print.
GenreCityscape photographs 1910-1920.Aerial photographs 1910-1920.Photographic prints 1910-1920.
NotesJ167115 U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright by Beach & Stern.
SubjectsHouston (Tex.)--1910-1920.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,096 × 3,275 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-178463

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