Not long ago, a resident of the small coastal town of Bolinas in west Marin County called the town’s museum. She was getting rid of a number of items and wanted to know if the museum would be interested in a shoebox full of old negatives.

Bolinas has always been a photogenic town, with its meandering main street of Victorian buildings. At the turn of the century it had wharves, a fleet of gaff-rigged schooners sailing to and from San Francisco, stagecoaches, cattle ranches on ocean cliffs, cabañas on the beach, a lifesaving station, a copper mine, and even an oil well. The town took the brunt of the 1906 earthquake. It also witnessed many shipwrecks over the years.

I answered that call from Amy Jordan. She explained that her brother, Parker Edwards, an amateur historian, had acquired the photos in the 1930s. They were all taken by a woman photographer, Gertrude Southworth

The full text of this article is in the print edition of Coast & Ocean.