THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL PHOTO ARCHIVE • FRAMED PRINTS • STOCK IMAGES

My mother's wedding portrait from March 1957. We miss you, Mom! Photo by Sarli, Miami. View full size. Everyone be sure to phone your mom this weekend.

Just days off the erecting floor at Lima Locomotive, Chesapeake and Ohio 4-8-4 Greenbrier type #604 poses for a company publicity photo. The Greenbriers were used in passenger service over the Appalachians from Hinton WV to Charlottesville, Richmond, and Newport News VA. Each of the four original Greenbriers were named after a prominent Virginia statesman. 604 was the Edward Randolph. She's so shiny you could shave in the reflection off the boiler jacket. Unfortunately, she'll never be this clean again!

Grandma Agnes in a "courting wagon," photographed by my grandfather in the early 1920s, possibly the day he proposed.

This is a portrait of the Reinfleisch women (family from my mother's side) believed to be taken either after arriving or shortly before departing from the homestead in Michigan. Date uncertain. The woman in black is almost definitely Beate Reinfleisch, my great-great grandmother, who lost her husband and second son there.

My dad's brother Charlie on a 1949 cruise to the Bahamas in the sailboat they built. View full size. 35mm Kodachrome by Marvin Hall.

Looking like they stepped out of a story with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, my grandmother's brothers Myron and Donald circa 1912 in Denver. Photo by Arnold W. Wade.

My father (Harry E. Nigh, 1880-1972) attended this Sioux Pow Wow in July 1901 in Valentine, Nebraska.

Veritas Max Nigh

I purchased this old print about 20 years ago at an antique show in Toronto. There is a poster visible on the side of the store that suggests the business was in the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, in the eastern part of the Province. Beyond that, I can't say where it was taken.

Most locomotive portrait artists were consummate professionals who didn't allow things like light poles--or old ladies--to obscure their subject. Whoever took this photo wasn't on his game apparently. The old lady--a rather comical figure, is she not?--is probably the photographers wife, but I like to think she's lost and wandering around the Cincinnati Union Terminal service area looking for the ticket window. The locomotive, for those who care, is C&O Pacific type #492. Photo dated July, 1937. View full size.

Lima, Ohio. December 1941. The brilliant C&O/Lima Locomotive design team poses for a photograph in front of their latest creation--a 2-6-6-6 Allegheny. Despite years of claims to the contrary, this first series of Alleghenies were indeed the heaviest steam locomotives ever built. This photo was taken by the Lima company photographer mere days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and for C&O the first ten Alleghenies came right in time for the surge of war traffic on America's railroads.

George Rice Jones and Lydia Barnes Jones wedding day portrait in Sallisaw, OK. Ages 17 and 19. July 29, 1927.

Soldiers back from the Spanish-American war march down Main Street in Columbia, South Carolina in 1898.

Trolley car in Columbia, SC circa 1900. Trolleys ran over much of downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods at the time.

The photo was probably taken in the Hudson Valley area of New York, but it is not identified on the photo. It may be some type of May Day celebration, but I'm not sure. May, 1932. View full size.

The D. Earl Comb Christmas parade. Back in the early 30's Mr. Comb ran this parade throughout the Midwest and the southeastern United States.

He bought the parade from Albert H. Thacher for $1,800 - including all animals, costumes and props.

The pictures are from various locations. I've only been able to pinpoint two - one at a very specific corner in Atlanta and the other in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. My favorites are of the parade clowns. I've got a Flickr group that contains all the pictures, stationery and contract for this. I've still got some documents I haven't scanned in yet (like the instructions to running a parade), but hopefully will sometime soon.