Photos Taken in Tanauan, Early American Colonial Period

These photos below are part of the recently-released Manila Railroad Company collection of the United States National Archives Digital Library. The company was the forerunner of the present day Philippine National Railways, a government-owned company that provides commuter and long distance rail services on the island of Luzon.

Typically, the scanned photographs are not comprehensively labeled and provide scant information other than that these were taken early during the American colonial era.

The first two photographs were labeled “Local freight transport at Tanauan, Batangas.” These photographs, taken in 1910, show a man who apparently did not own a horse, a cow, or a carabao and had, instead, ingeniously used three goats to transport cargo for loading onto trains at the Tanauan stop of the Manila Railroad Company.

Regrettably, the labels do not inform what were contained inside the sacks behind him. Neither do they state if the sacks were for export to Manila or to other towns of Batangas or Laguna, since the trains traveled as far south as Bauan in Batangas and east as Santa Cruz in Laguna.

The last picture below shows a view of Taal Lake as seen from an unidentified place in Tanauan. The picture was obviously taken from an elevated place; and while the lake itself was obscured by what must have been haze, the mountains at the back appear to be the Tagaytay Range. No date was provided as to when the picture was taken.

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