[Montana Photographica]. Rogers, Herbert & Gale

[Massive Collection of Kodak Photo Negatives Depicting Saltese, Montana, Across the First Half of the 20th Century]

[Saltese, Mt., and various places across the American West: 1901-1959]. Approximately 2150 photo negatives, each about 3x5 inches, contained in 22 fully-annotated Kodak negative albums. A bit of exposure bleeding at edges, hardly affecting image areas. Occasional light scratching visible in margins. Fine, strong images, overall. Very good to near fine. Item #4928

A comprehensive and meticulous collection of photo negatives, comprising well over 2000 images of Saltese, Montana, its industry, development, and culture over the first six decades of the 20th century. The images present here were compiled across two generations of the Rogers family, primarily by Herbert Rogers and his son Gale Rogers, both influential citizens in the very small town of Saltese during its brief heyday. Herbert moved to Montana in the late-19th century and began this photo record soon after; and, until his retirement in the late 1920s, he was the chief owner and operator of the power and water services for the town. Gale attended a small business school in Butte and thereafter was involved in many of the Rogers' local business interests, including the Woodburn Mining Company, the aforementioned Saltese Electric Light and Water Company, and the Rogers Tourist Cabins and Standard Service Station. The elder Rogers was perhaps the prime mover of this archive's generation, as the photo series ends in 1959, following quickly upon his death the year prior.

Today the town of Saltese, in the northwest corner of Montana near the border with Idaho, is a small collection of houses with a bar and a general store sandwiched between Interstate 90 and the St. Regis River. The 2020 census recorded a population of ten. In its former life, Saltese was a gold and silver mining town, established in the 1880s as Silver City and renamed after the Nez Perce chief in 1891; for a time in the early-20th century (and during the period covered by the present archive), it could boast over 2000 residents and a stop on the Northern Pacific Railroad. The twenty-two albums that house the negative collection each contains an index filled with manuscript dates and descriptions for each image.

The core of this archive is an almost sixty-year visual record of life in Saltese, with images of town architecture, views, industry, business, social activity, and citizens. The preponderance of images date from the early 1920s to the late 1950s, with one album covering the period before World War I. The negatives include classic mining images, railroad views, and town floods; floods of the St. Regis River, winter storms and their effects, and various weather mitigation efforts; social events, town baseball games, and family gatherings; group and individual portraits of town citizens, friends, and members of the Rogers family. In addition to the images of mining efforts, there is ample documentation of other industry in the region, such as lumbering and milling; the local water and power plants, which the Rogers owned; and construction of various edifices and businesses. The negatives are also an excellent record of town life, showing schoolhouse gatherings, town sports teams, fire lookouts, and Rogers family activities.

A substantial portion of the collection documents automobile journeys taken across the intermountain West by the Rogers, who traveled extensively in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and elsewhere. A subset of these is an interesting group of major dam projects and construction, such as Polson Dam on the Flathead River and the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. In all, a fabulous and expansive visual archive of a small town northwestern Montana and life in the mountain West as it was lived by the Rogers family during the first half of the 20th century.

Price: $6,750.00