R. J. Arnold, Photographer was born on June 28, 1856 in England and died in Monterey on May 19, 1929.
In the Arnold collection are views of early adobes and many of the California Missions as well and early Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. He had studios earlier in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Alameda before coming to Monterey to replace C.W.J. Johnson at the Hotel Del Monte in 1901.
The Arnold collection holds many wonderful images of early San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and the history of the California coastal region.
We acquired the collection in 1989 and have cataloged it and found that it holds the works of other early California photographers such as R. R. Holmes of San Luis Obispo we hold three of his 5×8 glass negatives of the Chumash rock art of Cariso Plains, W. N. Tuttle, Hayward & Muzzall, W. J. Rea all of Santa Barbara and E. H. Price of Pacific Grove, C. E. Watkins of San Francisco, C. W. J. Johnson of Monterey, and others still to be identified.