Into the Chuckwallas: Rediscovered Desert Photographs of Susie Keef Smith and Lula Mae Graves –KCET

Susie Smith’s 1,500 photographs of the early desert were almost lost to history. When she died in Leucadia in 1988, a San Diego county estate administrator tossed her life’s work into a dumpster. A quick-thinking archaeologist leapt into the bin and rescued what we now know to be an unparalleled portrait of a neglected corner of the California desert.