Harry Crosby's explorations, studies and writings establish him as one of the foremost authorities on Baja California's colorful past. In the late 1960s, he rode over 600 miles on mule back to the remotest areas of Baja California, obtaining photographs for a book celebrating the 200th anniversary of the founding of Spanish Alta California. Since completing that first work, he has logged over a thousand miles in the saddle over harsh and barren terrain to interview the peninsula's isolated ranchers and discover its amazing prehistoric rock art. In "The Cave Paintings of Baja California" (1997, Sunbelt Publications), he documents the searches that revealed over 200 previously undiscovered rock art sites. At the Rock Art Archive symposium "Rock Art of Baja California: The Legacy of the Great Murals" in 1997, Harry Crosby announced the donation of his extensive slide collection to the Archive.

Collection Contents: 9 Vols., 480 pp of 9,600 original slides and 1 box of black and white negatives and color transparencies of line drawings or other illustrations presented in various publications, including The Cave Paintings of Baja California (La Jolla: Copley Books, 1984). Materials include rock art in the Sierra de San Francisco, the Sierra de Guadalupe, the Sierra de San Juan and the Sierra de San Borja, Baja California, Mexico. See JVT Corr file; Rock Art Archive History Vol. 1; JVT Corr file; Ref.: “The Legacy of the Great Murals” in CIOA Backdirt Spring/Summer 1997.

All materials are of high quality, and 60% of the collection has been scanned and stored on CD as of 2004. Not available for publication without staff approval.

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