Undisturbed Vistas

If you want to travel decades back in time and hundreds of miles from home without leaving the Valley, check out “California Deserts: Today and Yesterday,” opening Saturday at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage.

Curators have installed 41 large, striking pairs of images showing the deserts surrounding Los Angeles as far back as 80 years--and the same vista seen from the same spot today.

Vintage black-and-white views selected by historian Matthew W. Roth from the archives of the Automobile Club of Southern California have been paired with recent color photographs by James W. Cornett, natural sciences curator for the Palm Springs Desert Museum.

Among the locations pictured are the Coachella Valley, Barstow, Salton Sea, Calico Mountain and desert parks including Red Rock Canyon, Joshua Tree and Death Valley.

These before-and-after pictures will surprise many viewers. Except for shots of Palm Desert--shown as a rutted wasteland in 1928 and as a malled and manicured suburb in 1997--the mighty desert seems not to have succumbed to the hand of man.

In the exhibit’s catalog, Cornett says he was surprised at what he saw through his camera lens: “I had anticipated that a repeat photography project of the California desert might reveal a plethora of human impacts [but] human disturbance of desert lands may be less severe than many, including myself, had assumed.”

Michael Duchemin, the Autry’s history curator, says the exhibit reveals “the paradox of preservation.”

Originally intended as illustrations for “Touring Topics,” the Automobile Club’s magazine founded in 1909, the pictures lured motorists into the desert as tourists, he explains. But rather than leading to the ruin of natural sites, he said it led to preservation efforts because the sites became tourist destinations.

Many landscapes in the show became state and national parks “rather than being lost to developers or degraded by [unsupervised] careless visitors,” Duchemin says.

The exhibit vicariously delivers the experience “Touring Topics” was designed to promote.

Back then, Duchemin says, the Automobile Club described cars used for desert travel as “land yachts” and operating them was a “test of skill on desert dirt roads.” Some of the old photos show cars from earlier decades operating in rough terrain.

Also on display is a 1929 Auto Club service truck of the sort sent to deal with wilderness mishaps.

Although safer and easier to navigate now, the desert appears as beautiful as it was in 1911.

BE THERE

“California Deserts: Today and Yesterday,” through Sept. 26, the Autry Museum, 4700 Heritage Way, Griffith Park, near the junction of the Golden State and Ventura freeways. Open Tuesday-Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. $7.50 adults, $5 seniors and students, free for children 2-12. Automobile Club members receive a 25% discount. Call (323) 667-2000.