Rare collection of identified photographs documenting Calaveras County, Yosemite National Park, and a few other picturesque California scenes, taken by the photographer and entrepreneur Desire Fricot while he was prospecting the area in the early 1890s.

Included are views of the town of Sheep Ranch and the surrounding environs. Originally a large, open sheep ranch (of all things!) the town became a bustling gold mining hub in 1860 after ore was discovered inside one the corrals where the sheep were penned at night. There are interesting photos of the county’s denizens, including a group of fishermen at San Antonio Creek and a portrait of an elderly worker identified in Fricot’s hand as, “Vieux d’la vielle et son ane - Pierre Davis, ancien employe de mon pere” (Old man and his ass - Pierre Davis, former employee of my father). Other Calaveras County landmarks pictured include the Two Sentinels (a pair of giant sequoias which stood at the entrance to the Calaveras big tree grove), the Mammoth Grove Hotel, and the Big Tree Pavilion. The Yosemite materials include photos of Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, Mirror Lake with a view of Mt. Watkins; the Wawona Tree in Mariposa Grove, and a scarce image of a coach for the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Co., which completed the first road through Mariposa Grove in the 1870s and provided stage service from Madera to Yosemite.

Desire Fricot was a colorful and influential Californian character. Born 1868, his father Jules Nicolas Fricot was a mining speculator and part of the French prospecting community who owned and operated a number of claims in Nevada and Calaveras County. After receiving an education in both France and the US, Desire Fricot moved to the Grass Valley where he prospected on the Independence claim from 1893 through 1897. It was during this time he produced the photographs in the present collection. When he was not traveling the world with a pet monkey named Biscrouch, he was a dedicated philanthropist and conservationist. He worked to improve the area’s roads, open the county historical museum, and was a leader in the efforts to establish the Calaveras Big Trees as a protected state park.

Fricot’s photographic work is extremely scarce. We have only been able to locate one comparable collection, an album of Calaveras County scenes which is held at the Bancroft Library.