Alameda photographer documents ‘Mayors Across America’ in his new book

Unlike California Assembly or Congressional representatives who can hide from their constituents in Sacramento or Washington, D.C., America’s mayors find themselves on the front lines. They live and often hold down jobs or run businesses outside of politics in their own cities. In other words, mayors have to face the music from their neighbors, friends and even customers.

This unique aspect of being a mayor is the subject of the new photo book “Mayors Across America — Mayors Outside the Office” by longtime Alameda photographer Steve Hathaway. Eight years in the making, the book features photos and profiles of 90 mayors from all 50 states, including former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

Hathaway says “Da Mayor” (as Brown has been called) asked him if he was looking to find other mayors and that he told Brown he’d like to get to Clint Eastwood, the former mayor of Carmel on California’s central coast. He says Brown gave him a number to an associate of Eastwood’s that led to their eventual photo shoot.

Hathaway says he became fascinated by how mayors are part of a community’s fabric in 1975 when it dawned on him that Tony Corica, a friend he had grown up with, was the son of Alameda’s then-newly elected Mayor Chuck Corica. The namesake of the Island’s golf course complex on Bay Farm Island, Corica also owned an Alameda barber shop when he was elected.

Hathaway says this made him realize that “mayors come from all kinds of backgrounds and occupations.” Soon thereafter Hathaway was busy launching his commercial photography career in San Francisco, but he says mayors and their occupations stayed in his mind for a long time.

“I would kid my wife, ‘Somebody has to photograph mayors in their occupations, barbers and whatever else there are out there.’ And we would just kind of laugh and go, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’ ” he says.

Fast-forward to 2015 and Hathaway, by then retired, found himself hosting another longtime Alameda friend, the late Tom Weir, a former Oakland Tribune writer covering the Oakland A’s beat who had become a USA Today sports columnist living in Nashville.

“I came downstairs in the morning, and my wife and Tom were having coffee, and he looks at me and goes, ‘I love your idea. You take the photos, I’ll do the stories.’ And I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He says ‘The Mayors.’ And I said, ‘Well, OK.’ ” Game on.

Soon afterward, Hathaway recruited another Alameda friend, fellow retiree and golfing buddy Paul Shellenberger, to be his wing man, and they were off to the races photographing mayors.

“Steve is my best friend, but I didn’t really know how he worked and what all went into it,” says Shellenberger. “He said he needed some muscle, so I said, ‘I’d love to do it.’ ”

Weir wrote several of the profiles for the book, and then Steve Glazier, Hathaway’s cousin, took over after Weir’s death in 2023.

The very first mayor the pair photographed was “Farmer John” Muller, Half Moon Bay’s mayor at the time.

“He was a pumpkin farmer. And I just thought, ‘This is perfect. It doesn’t get much better,’ ” says Hathaway. “When I photographed him, he said, ‘Are you looking for more mayors? You gotta go to Colma. The mayor there is a volunteer fireman.’ So I did that, and it just took off.”

Pretty soon Hathaway and Shellenberg were hopping on planes to capture mayors in action nationwide. One of their first trips was to visit with the mayor of the smallest incorporated city in America: Monowi, Nebraska, where Mayor Elsie Eiler’s stamp is literally on everything.

That’s because Monowi’s population is exactly one: Eiler. The only other one, her husband Rudy, died in 2004. Eiler’s duties include being mayor, clerk, treasurer, librarian and bartender at the Monowi Tavern. No word on the town’s 401(k) plan.

Not all the mayors profiled in Hathaway’s self-published book were currently working as mayors when the photos were taken, including Brown and Eastwood.

One of the more bizarre real-life mayor stories Hathaway and Shellenberger came across was the saga of Judy Cochran, the mayor of Livingston, Texas. During the state’s alligator hunting season, the mayor shot one of the reptiles on her property that she suspected of eating one of her prized miniature horses. Cochran had the offending gator stuffed and posed with the animal in her portrait for the book.

One of Shellenberger’s more memorable recollections of his and Steve’s adventures capturing America’s mayors came in Waterloo, Iowa, where they went to photograph the then-mayor, Quentin Hart.

“We got there early, and I went into a coffee shop to get some coffee for Steve and I, and the young lady behind the counter said, ‘You don’t look like you’re from around here.’ I said, ‘Oh no, we’re here to shoot the mayor.’

“And as you can imagine, she looked at me like, ‘Shoot the mayor?’ I said, ‘Well, not literally. We’re here to photograph the mayor.’ She goes, ‘Oh, my goodness, the mayor’s my cousin.’ I kind of panicked there for a minute,” says Shellenberger, who quickly clarified that they were there to take photos.

To purchase a copy of Hathaway’s book, visit hathawayphoto.com online.

Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at pkilduff350@gmail.com.