Photography: Capturing History, Preserving the Past
By Ellie Boese treditor@times-online.com When looking back to times gone by, there is perhaps one type of historical record that connects us most intimately to the past: photographs. These frozen moments in time serve as a visual testament to how events, people and places have changed, adding to the wealth of documents and other historical artifacts that do the same. It is photographers—both amateur and professional—who have gifted us these glimpses of the past.
Today’s photographers are continuing that tradition, preserving today’s world for generations to come.
Pictures also give us a special window through which to see locations develop and blossom as populations grow and technology develops. Here in a prairie state with swaths of rural land, photos show us what everyday life looked like for ancestors who made this their homes and set the foundation for what Barnes County is today.
A.M. Sanders, born in Norway in 1859, was a young photographer raising his family in Dakota Territory. He was around to capture the first years of Valley City’s existence. During that time, he photographed Valley City founder D.W. Clark. The handwritten inscription on the back explains Mr. Clark’s get-up and trombone: “VC 1st Band,” which Clark had organized. This exists as one of the earliest photographs of the man.
One of Barnes’s County’s earliest photography studios opened in the 1880s, when Samuel
Fisher retired from the farm to the city. His son Chessmur worked with him at Fisher & Company, together snapping photos of huge snowfalls, freight trains, boating on the Sheyenne, farm activities, the State Normal School, town celebrations and more. They archived the years in which a village began its transformation into a city. Their work was used on postcards in the early days, which community members used to write messages to and show their friends and family the beauty of where they lived. They helped develop a culture in which holding visual mementos of the past became important to people. Parents had portraits taken of their children and families, individuals had photos resized to carry in lockets or hang on their walls. They also seem to have inspired others to jump into the photography business (or hobby).
Lloyd Witter was only a teenager when he found a love for photography. He snapped pictures of the Barnes County Fair goings-on, pageants in the park, Normal School groups and activities. He focused on the everyday life of Valley City residents, their hobbies, classes, sports teams, theatrical casts. Witter enlisted in World War I on June 3, 1917, discharged Nov. 30, 1918 as Sergeant.
As technologies advanced along with the Territory’s boom, the progress of Valley City and wider Barnes County was captured in new and stunning ways. For example, G.H. McDonald took a variety of panoramas of the city of Valley City in April
1902.
The spreads of town show early churches, the old high school, the brick courthouse, the stark surroundings of empty grassy hills, the power lines now stringing electricity through the streets, the dirt roads, wooden boardwalks.
A panoramic photo taken from the railroad tracks in the center of town offers a wide southward view of Main
Street. The muddy roads are raked with tracks from horses and wagons, some of the responsible parties visible along the boardwalks as their well-dressed drivers consult with friends, shop, or work. Folks go about their day— businessmen, children, women. Them, taking a break, walking a dog, heading to or from school, seem to us in such an old photo like fascinating subjects. In their reality, it was just another day on the prairie.
MacDonald took his equipment up to the top of the ridge on the southern edge of town. He positioned himself a little ways east of the Normal School, near the Occident Flour Mill. The wide streets running north and south are dark and wide, splitting white, two-story frame homes that dot the neighborhoods. It almost looks like a settlement on mars, surrounded by barren ridges in an untamed wilderness. MacDonald also took a panorama of the booming Occident Flour Mill and its dam. A mustached businessman sits on the south side of the river near the dam, looking across the river at a group of workers on break as a young boy behind him holds his bike and looks inquisitively at the camera.
His photos allow us to see the “bigger picture,” the whole town and its surroundings. It’s a different feeling seeing the spread of the city and moments in town/country life. It shows just how much things changed in the grand scheme of things, rather than just showing a transformation of one building here or there.
Then and in the years that followed, photographers like Kenneth McFarland, Andy Risem and many others were instrumental in creating a visual historical record of Valley City and Barnes County. Dirt roads and wagons transformed to automobiles and street lights. Festive Christmas lights and decorations are strung along Central Avenue in 1930, with the many neon-lit signs lining the downtown. A 1934 NonPartisan League Convention—a sea of men and a few women in grey and black suits—in the Piller Theater (a space now occupied by Dutton’s Parlour and Valley Gallery, McCLean Frames and Noos Shop). Peggy Lee and her husband hob-knob, eat and play music in black and white photos from1950 (Gifford Herron). She was in town performing during the NDWS in March 1950.
The portraits, landscape spreads, postcards and other pieces have captured the progress of the world, right down to rural Barnes County, North Dakota.
A Career of
Captures George Dutton has
been a photographer for 51 years now, his journey into the industry beginning when he was a student at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. There, he earned a bachelor of arts degree, with emphasis in commercial and architectural photography, which launched his camera-holding, photoprocessing career.
He worked in Minneapolis, Baltimore and Houston before he and his wife Bonnie moved
to Valley City and made their business home in the former Piller Theatre building.
George continues to capture landscapes, portraits, groups, events and other subjects from behind the camera. He’s waded through the ever-changing technologies that come with the photography industry, including the cameras, the film and developing photos.
With every capture or
breathtaking moments and the realities of everyday life through his lenses, George helps ensure that the chronology of visual historic record continues for the many generations yet to come.
Dutton’s Valley Gallery also gives individuals a way to freeze a moment in time and create an everlasting memory: “Memories; Capture Now...Treasure Forever.”