This collection is comprised of consecutively numbered glass plate negatives, film, and lantern slides of Colorado plants and animals (1882-1915), associated logbooks,
and miscellaneous papers. The logbooks for plate numbers 1-2342, created between 1882 and 1905, provide the plate number, the date of exposure, and notations regarding subject
matter, copyright, sales, and occasional scientific classifications for the subject. While there are no log books for plates created 1906-1915, most are numbered and/or grouped
according to subject.
Historical Note:
Edward Royal Warren (1860-1942) was born in Waltham, Massachusetts and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, 1881) and Colorado College (1883). Although
originally trained as an engineer, spending his early professional career conducting surveys and assaying mining claims throughout Colorado, by 1902 he was a full-time naturalist,
documenting the state's flora and fauna. It is his work as a naturalist and ornithologist that is represented in this collection, but the photographs also document ranch life
in the American West c. 1890s: cowboys, cattle, ranch architecture, western towns, and Colorado landscapes, mostly in the vicinity of Crested Butte.
Warren used photography and detailed observations to document Colorado's plants and animals. In addition to papers published in "The Auk," "Bird Lore," and "Condor," he
also produced two major works on Colorado wildlife, Mammals of Colorado (1910) and The Beaver - Its Work and Its Ways. In 1909, in recognition of his contributions
to Colorado natural history, he was made honorary director of the Colorado College Museum.
