Collection comprises seven, black and white, gelatin silver print photographs taken by Mark Ruwedel between 1996 and 2006. One photograph, Death Valley #16 (2001) shows an abandoned railroad trestle in Death Valley, California. The other prints in this collection are from Ruwedel's Desert Sidings series, including Bagdad (1996); Pisgah (1996); Klondike (1996); Siberia (1996); Essex (2002); and Cadiz (2006). These images show various locations in the Mojave Desert, San Bernardino County, California. The photographs are part of Ruwedel's larger series, Westward the Course of Empire and were featured in the California Historical Society's 2019 exhibition of the same name.