Two albumen photographs by Isaiah West Taber of San Francisco occupy the recto and verso of a single large album leaf, each printed with Taber's imprint and a catalog designation in the lower border. The recto, numbered B 45, presents the Colton and Crocker mansions on Nob Hill in a street-level view looking up the block, while the verso, numbered B 195, documents the ferry-boat Solano docked at her slip on the Sacramento River alongside a full consist of railroad cars and a locomotive.

The mansion view shows two monumental Italianate and Second Empire structures side by side, with a colonnaded portico and rusticated base on the nearer Crocker residence contrasting against the mansard tower and arched window surrounds of the Colton house behind it. The ferry view is taken from an elevated vantage, revealing multiple parallel rail tracks leading directly onto the pier apron, the Solano's four tall stacks and multi-deck superstructure filling the center, and low hills and open water visible across the strait.

David Colton was a railroad attorney and associate of the Central Pacific's Big Four, and his mansion neighbored that of Charles Crocker, one of the railroad's founders; both structures were demolished following the 1906 earthquake. The Solano, built in 1879, was at the time of this photograph the largest train ferry in the world, capable of carrying an entire passenger train across the Carquinez Strait.

The recto mount border reads "B 45. The Colton and Crocker Mansions, S. F., Cal." with "Taber Photo., San Francisco" at right; the verso border reads "B 195. Ferry-boat 'Solano,' on the Sacramento River, Cal." with the same Taber imprint. The album page measures 8 1/2 by 12 1/4 inches, with each image approximately 4 3/4 by 7 1/4 inches.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer