Alexander 'Zan' Stark, Photographer of the California Roadside

Alexander Johnston Stark, better known as Zan, was one of the most prolific scenic postcard photographers working in California during the middle decades of the 20th century. His cards document redwood forests, roadside attractions, resorts, downtown streets, bridges, railroads, coastal highways, and many of the places motorists encountered while exploring the American West.

Stark was born on April 10, 1889, in Ishpeming, Michigan. His family moved several times during his childhood, eventually settling in Cincinnati. When his father died, Alexander left school after the seventh grade and joined his older brother Edwin in helping support the family. He worked in a drugstore, clerked for a railroad, and developed his artistic interests in the advertising department of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

In 1914, Alexander and Edwin moved to San Francisco and invested in a business producing photographic lantern slides for theaters, lecturers, and commercial customers. Alexander's new career was interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army during World War I. He trained at Camp Lewis in Washington and served in France with the 91st Infantry Division during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

After returning to California in 1919, Stark rejoined his brother in the photography business. Their San Francisco operation became the Alta Slide & Photo Company and later Alta Studios. During this period Alexander called himself Xan, with an X, and produced commercial photographs, theatrical images, arcade cards, and a series of artistic studies featuring posed models.

This early studio work is quite different from the scenic postcards for which he is now best known, but it helped Stark develop the careful sense of composition that would later distinguish his landscape and architectural photography.

Becoming Zan of Tamalpais

Stark married Vivian Getty in 1925. Their son, Alexander J. Stark Jr., was born the following year, and their daughter, Mary Ann, arrived in 1929.

By the late 1920s, Stark was living in Mill Valley and commuting to San Francisco by ferry. According to an account he later gave to the Marin Independent Journal, he was examining a rack of locally produced postcards when he decided that he could make better ones himself. He borrowed a neighbor's automobile and began photographing the towns and scenery of Marin County.

The new venture developed during the early years of the Great Depression, when Stark's San Francisco studio business was struggling. By approximately 1932, scenic postcards had changed from a sideline into his principal occupation. The name Xan became Zan, and his cards began appearing under the trade name Zan of Tamalpais.

In 1935, the Mill Valley Record reported that Stark had assembled nearly 100 postcard views of Mill Valley, Muir Woods, Mount Tamalpais, Marin County, San Francisco, and the surrounding bay. The newspaper praised his ability to choose attractive camera positions and reported that Stark and business associate Lloyd Perkins had entered into a contract to provide two million California postcards to eastern distributors.

Whether the full quantity was ultimately delivered is unclear, but the announcement demonstrates the scale of the market Stark hoped to serve. His postcards were not intended merely for a few local shops. He was building a regional wholesale operation.

Photographing the Redwood Empire

Stark traveled extensively between the early 1930s and early 1950s. Although his business was based in Mill Valley, his catalog spread throughout California and into Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and other western states.

In 1936, he became the official photographer of the Redwood Empire Association, an organization that promoted automobile tourism from San Francisco north through Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte, and southern Oregon. Many cards associated with this work carry the wording Redwood Empire Assn. Photo within the image.

The assignment was well suited to Stark. The newly accessible Redwood Highway was lined with giant trees, state parks, roadside cafes, auto courts, gift shops, drive-through redwoods, and increasingly elaborate tourist attractions. Stark photographed both the natural landscape and the businesses that developed around it.

His cards record places with names such as the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree, the Del Norte Wonder Tree, the Unique Log House, the Cathedral Tree, and Old Man Burl. Although many of these subjects were unabashed roadside novelties, Stark usually gave them careful compositions that balanced the attraction with the enormous scale of the surrounding forest.

He also photographed hotels, restaurants, wineries, beaches, bridges, railroad depots, city halls, military schools, theaters, downtown streets, and ordinary commercial buildings. His catalog includes major destinations such as Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, Lassen Peak, Big Sur, Carmel, San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.

Some of his most historically useful images are not the grand landscapes, but the modest local views. A sharply photographed gas station, roadside market, motel, tavern, or small-town business district may now provide one of the best surviving records of a building that disappeared decades ago.

A commercial photographer and publisher

Stark was more than a traveling photographer. He also produced postcards for businesses, government organizations, resorts, parks, and other photographers.

Some customers commissioned him to photograph their properties. Others supplied negatives or artwork that Stark converted into postcards. Prefixes attached to card numbers sometimes identify a particular commercial customer, including resorts, drugstores, tourist concessions, and regional businesses.

This means that a postcard manufactured by the Zan operation was not necessarily photographed by Stark himself. Some unsigned cards can be recognized through his characteristic caption lettering and production style, while other views were published under a customer's name.

Stark also reused photographs and changed their catalog numbers. The same negative might appear under more than one number, and his numbering system was not strictly chronological. A higher number does not necessarily indicate a later photograph.

These inconsistencies can make cataloging his work difficult, but they also make the cards interesting to specialists. Comparing captions, numbers, borders, photographic papers, and later color versions can reveal how a single image remained in commercial circulation for many years.

Identifying Zan real photo postcards

The classic Zan postcard is a black-and-white real photo postcard with a handwritten-style caption near one lower corner and the name Zan, often followed by a catalog number, near the other.

Stark's earliest scenic cards from approximately 1933 to 1935 are found on photographic papers with DOPS and EKKP stamp boxes. Around 1936, he adopted custom postcard stock. Some examples have the words Genuine Photograph by Zan of Tamalpais printed vertically along the divider on the back.

Many early cards have white borders created by masking the postcard paper during exposure. Later examples printed on EKC or Kodak stock frequently extend the image to the edges.

Under magnification, a genuine Zan RPPC should display continuous photographic tones rather than a regular halftone dot pattern. The image may have a glossy or matte surface, and aging can produce silvering in the darker areas.

The handwritten caption, Zan signature, and catalog number are useful identification clues, but none provides an exact date by itself. Stark reused numbers, renumbered older views, and continued printing popular negatives over long periods.

Color linens and Zan's Krome Kards

Beginning around 1948, Stark increasingly adapted his black-and-white photographs into commercially printed color postcards.

Some were produced by Colourpicture of Boston and carry the wording Published by Zan Stark, Mill Valley, California on the back. These cards may have a smooth surface or the textured finish associated with the linen era. Their images were built through successive color-printing stages and finished with a black halftone layer.

Around 1952, Stark added glossy process-color cards manufactured by the H.S. Crocker Company of San Francisco. These were marketed as Zan's Krome Kards and generally carry catalog numbers beginning with the letter K.

A collector may therefore encounter the same basic image as an original black-and-white RPPC, a color linen, and a glossy Krome Kard. For example, several of Stark's redwood novelty views were repeatedly updated and issued in different formats.

The photographic version generally preserves the most detail and is usually the most desirable format. Color linens and chromes are printed postcards rather than RPPCs, even when they were made from one of Stark's original negatives.

The later postcard business

Stark divorced Vivian in 1936 and soon married Katherine Greenman. By 1940, the postcard company had become a family operation, with Katherine, her son Franklin, and Alexander Jr. assisting in the studio.

The business eventually moved into a building at 324 Miller Avenue in Mill Valley, where the Starks lived above the photographic laboratory and wholesale postcard operation.

Stark also became involved in local politics and served on the Mill Valley City Council. In the early 1950s, he and his son entered the newspaper business. They moved their attention to Boyes Hot Springs in Sonoma County, where they published the Valley of the Moon Review.

As the newspaper consumed more of the family's time, photographer Edwin Vernon Wood appears to have assumed control of the postcard operation. By the mid-1950s, Wood was advertising himself as the publisher of Zan's postcards and issuing both black-and-white and color cards.

Later cards bearing the Zan name may therefore have been photographed or produced by Wood. A noticeable change from Stark's flowing script to slanted, all-capital captions can help identify some of these later issues.

Stark remained in Sonoma County until his death on March 17, 1967.

Notes and market conditions from North West Postcards

Zan Stark postcards are common enough that the photographer's name alone does not create a large premium. He produced thousands of different views, and some individual images were printed in quantities reaching into the tens of thousands.

Common scenic RPPCs are frequently offered between approximately $5 and $15. Familiar views of redwoods, Mount Tamalpais, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, and popular roadside attractions often fall within this range.

Printed color linens and Krome Kards generally occupy the lower end of the market. Common examples can often be found for approximately $3 to $10, although dealers sometimes ask more for clean cards or desirable attractions.

Better real photo postcards may be priced between approximately $15 and $40. Stronger subjects include small-town business districts, readable storefronts, transportation, roadside architecture, interiors, early automobiles, bridge construction, unusual industrial scenes, and identified businesses that no longer exist.

A particularly scarce location or historically important view can exceed these general ranges. As with most regional postcards, the value is usually driven more by subject and local demand than by the photographer's signature.

Stark's views of Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge construction are especially interesting, but not every bridge card is rare. Buyers should compare the specific viewpoint, construction stage, clarity, and number of similar examples available.

The early Alta Studios arcade cards and art photographs belong to a different collecting market from the scenic postcards. They are much less commonly encountered and may attract collectors of theater, film, glamour, or early 20th-century studio photography.

Asking prices should not be confused with completed sales. A Zan card listed for $20 may remain available for months, while a modestly priced small-town or commercial scene may sell quickly when it reaches the right local collector.

What to look for

The most desirable Zan cards are often those that reveal details beyond the main caption. A scenic card may become much more interesting when it includes a visible automobile, gas pump, business sign, railroad equipment, tourist cabin, or building that has since disappeared.

Collectors should also look for early photographic papers, unusual customer prefixes, uncommon towns, sharp printing, and captions written in Stark's characteristic hand. Cards that can be connected to a specific business commission or Redwood Empire Association campaign may have additional historical interest.

Condition matters, but scarce local subjects can remain desirable despite modest wear. Heavy fading, creases through the image, severe silvering, trimming, and surface loss will reduce value, particularly when the scene is common.

It is also worth checking whether a color card exists in an earlier photographic format. The black-and-white RPPC may contain significantly more information than the later printed version and may preserve the original composition before automobiles, signs, or other details were altered for the color market.

Institutional collections and legacy

Stanford University Libraries holds more than 3,000 Zan real photo postcards and photographic negatives dating primarily from about 1935 to 1955. The collection documents natural scenery, architecture, travel destinations, bridges, city streets, roadside attractions, and commercial properties throughout Northern California and the West.

The Anne T. Kent California Room at the Marin County Free Library preserves nearly 400 additional negatives documenting Marin County, Muir Woods, Mount Tamalpais, and neighboring communities.

These collections confirm the remarkable reach of Stark's operation. He photographed celebrated landmarks, but he also recorded the ordinary landscape through which tourists traveled: the road, the motel, the cafe, the souvenir shop, and the giant redwood with a hole cut through its trunk.

That roadside perspective is the heart of Zan Stark's legacy. His postcards did not simply show people where California was. They showed motorists what to look for once they arrived.

Additional reading

• "Zan Stark Collection, circa 1935–1955", Stanford University Libraries and the Online Archive of California.
• "Alexander 'Zan' Stark Collection, circa 1933–1955", Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library.
• "Zan of Tamalpais", Frank Sternad, San Francisco Bay Area Post Card Club.
• "Alexander 'Zan' Stark: Images of Mid-20th Century Marin", Anne T. Kent California Room.
• "Alexander J. 'Zan' Stark, Postcard Photographer", California Views Historical Photo Collection.
• "Alexander 'Zan' Stark Sr.", Springs Museum.

Example postcards