hat the photographic art has reached a wonderful stage of perfection is evident by a glance through the pages of this work. It may interest the reader to know that, with few exceptions, the pictures herein are the work of the firm of Laney & Melvin, whose gallery is over the drugstore of Gillis & Spoor. This firm in November, 1896, purchased the business of J. H. Young, who bought from F. C. Fryett the gallery, which was opened by him in February, 1892. Miss Laney and Mr. Melvin are related by the marriage of a sister of the former and a brother of the latter. Miss Grace E. Laney, a native of Parker, Pa., when a child moved with her parents to Bradford, Pa., and, after her father's death, with her mother to Seattle, Wash., where she learned the photographic business. Afterward she went to Pittsburg, Pa., and engaged in a gallery in the Smoky City.

Charles C. Melvin was born in Limestone, N.W., and from his very youth has been a lover and a devotee of the art he now follows. When a year old his parents moved to Bradford, where he worked in a gallery in vacation time while attending the public schools, and where he began his chosen profession. The members of the above firm had been looking for some time for a suitable place in California to start in business, when they learned of the wish of Mr. Young to sell out. Negotiations led to a purchase at the time above mentioned. The small business left by Mr. Young has grown rapidly under their management, and even the usually dull months of summer were busy ones with this firm. Recently the gallery has been altered and thoroughly renewed, so that at the present time it is an exceedingly attractive business place. Outside views as well as portraits are taken, and the pictures in this book show the merit of their work.

(Source: Illustrated Redlands, 1897, p. 78.)