Photos of Bauan Taken in November 1911
In this page are recently released scanned photographs of the now-defunct Manila Railroad Company, digitized and made available for download by the United States National Archives and Records Administration at its Digital Library.
The Manila Railroad Company was originally established by the Englishman Edmund Sykes as the Manila Railways in 1887. The company provided rail transport services in the island of Luzon. In 1906, a separate railroad company based in the state of New Jersey was established. It was called the Manila Railroad Company and, like the Manila Railways, provided rail services in Luzon1.
By 1916, the Philippine colonial government acquired both companies and merged them into one named the Manila Railroad. The photographs below, therefore, were taken before the merger and acquisition of the New Jersey-based company of the southern Luzon track by the American Insular Government, which ran down from Manila to Batangas Town (now City) with an extension line all the way to the Municipality of Bauan.
All the three photographs below were taken on 20 November 1911 at the Municipality of Bauan in the Province of Batangas. Typically, the photographs2 were scantily labeled. Hence, the information we are able to provide about each will likewise be scant.
Above, manual laborers are seen doing grader work on the land in the Municipality of Bauan for the eventual construction of the town’s railroad station.
The picture above shows a locomotive on the tracks of the line from what was still the town of Batangas to the Municipality of Bauan, with the latter's church visible in the background.
Finally, the picture above shows the church in the Municipality of Bauan as seen from the end of the Manila Railroad Company's right of way.
2 All photographs in this page were originally downloaded from the Digital Library of the United States National Archives and Records Administration.