Capturing Santa Monica: H.F. Rile

Santa Monica, 1875: 1,000 residents, 160 houses, a school district and a church, the wharf, and a local newspaper. The small coastal community was officially declared a town that year.

Photographer H.F. (Harry Frantz) Rile (1860-1949) was active from the 1880s through the 1910s. He produced cabinet cards documenting everything from local businesses and school children to city celebrations and views of Palisades Park.

Here, Rile documented the crowds celebrating the opening of the Pacific Electric Railroad transportation service from Los Angeles to Santa Monica in 1896.

Rile also captured visitors at the Santa Monica Municipal Pier for the opening day dedication ceremonies on September 9, 1909.

As a young man, Rile worked his way west from Philadelphia, finally settling in Santa Monica sometime between 1885 and 1888.

Rile was an effective marketer, labeling images with his distinctive “H.F. Rile Photo” mark and a title for each scene. He also devised a number of different advertisements printed on the back of his cabinet cards.

Beachgoers could pose with a variety of backdrops in his studio or purchase pre-printed views of Santa Monica.

From the 1880s through the 1920s, Californians "plunged" into large covered pools just steps away from the Pacific Ocean. These bathhouses were filled with ocean water heated via glass rooves.

Rile succeeded two of Santa Monica’s earliest documentarians, Carleton Watkins and E.G. Morrison. Upon Morrison’s death, Rile purchased his photography business and opened the Pacific Photograph Gallery on the sand near Santa Monica’s popular North Beach Bath House.

An ill-fated move to the Decatur Hotel in Ocean Park, which suffered a devastating fire in 1912, caused Rile to close up shop and reopen at Jefferson Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles.

Rile is believed to have left the photography business in the late-1910s due to problems with his vision.

Over the past forty years, the Santa Monica History Museum has acquired a large collection of original Rile cabinet cards generously donated by members of our community.