Jeff Lapides of Sierra Madre, a jewelry photographer and book designer, will present “Passage to El Dorado,” about Rudolph d’Heureuse, who photographed the Mojave Road in 1863, in a program Monday sponsored by the La Verne Historical Society, .

Lapides’ presentation will be at 7 p.m. at the Hillcrest retirement community, 2705 Mountain View Drive, La Verne. It is free and open to the public.

Rudolph d’Heureuse, a naturalized German-American, was a surveyor, cartographer, civil engineer, mining engineer, oenologist and inventor.

On his journey in 1863, he photographed the Mojave Road in the desert West from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the banks of the Colorado River and the mines of Eldorado Canyon in what is now Nevada. This was many years before anyone else took the next photo of that desert and its travelers, crossroads, forts, soldiers and watering holes, according to a news release from the La Verne Historical Society.

Jeff Lapides’ previous book designs include Michele Zack’s “Southern California Story: Seeking the Better Life in Sierra Madre,” Elizabeth Pomeroy’s “San Marino: A Centennial History” and John Robinson’s “Gateways to Southern California.” It was his involvement with Robinson’s work that introduced him to several photographs that are the cornerstones of his March 10 program and its accompanying coffee table book, “The Mojave Road in 1863: The Pioneering Photographs of Rudolph d’Heureuse.”

For information about the La Verne Historical Society, go to lavernehistoricalsociety.org/.