Stunning Images from America's Urban Past

Chicago Magazine has published a slideshow of 34 remarkable panoramic images taken by photographer George R. Lawrence over a century ago. Lawrence was "an early pioneer in aerial photography, whose company motto was 'the hitherto impossible in photography is our specialty,'" writes Whet Moser. Many of the aerial photographs seen in the slideshow were taken via a system of kites called the "Lawrence Captive Airship": "a kite train of up to 17 Conyne kites on a piano wire cable suspending a camera held by the specially designed stabilizing mechanism."

Images include a striking view of Chicago's Union Stock Yards, photographs of San Francisco in ruins following the 1906 earthquake, and a couple of images taken in Chicago on this date in 1908 (the International Ballooning Contest) and 1910 (the United States Army tournament).