The SOHS Library is OPEN to the public at 106 N. Central Avenue in Medford, with FREE access to the SOHS Archives, from 12:00 - 4:00 pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Appointments are not necessary. Please contact library@sohs.org, or call 541-622-2025 ex 200 to ask questions or request research.

 

The SOHS Sawyer Collection

The images presented here are part of a donation we are calling the Sawyer Collection. The images have come from multiple photography studios, some of them unidentified. Most were taken by the Kiser Studio of Portland, Oregon in the 'Teens and early 'Twenties, especially of rugged scenes in Crater Lake and Glacier National Parks and along the Columbia River. A small collection was taken 1905-07 by photographer H. G. Peabody of Massachusetts and Maine urban and coastal scenes. An anonymous collection portrays architectural and rural views taken in Central Mexico in the same era.

The collection was saved and cared for by William Gruber, who had a long working relationship with the Portland photography studio Sawyer Service Inc. Gruber was the inventor of the popular View-Master, which he produced in collaboration with Sawyer’s. According to the donor, in 1939 Sawyer’s was poised to dispose of these glass plate negatives in order to focus on the View-Master, when Gruber offered to take the plates. Over the past eight decades, the Gruber family has meticulously maintained the collection of approximately 3,000 plates, weighing roughly half a ton. Southern Oregon Historical Society received the plates as a donation in 2019, and has made them publicly available with additional grant funding from Oregon Parks and Recreation and the Oregon Cultural Trust.

 SAWYER COLLECTION INDEX        WILLIAM GRUBER       WHEN THE COLLECTION ARRIVED AT SOHS     

Displaying 551 - 600 of 2802
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Title
SWY567

Looking across the Columbia from Crown Point

SWY568

Looing across the River from Crown Point, Showing Rooster Rock

SWY569

Looiking East from Crown Point

SWY570

Sunset--Mt Hood from Mt Hood Lodge?

SWY571

Sunset--Mt Adams from Mt Hood Lodge

SWY572

Mt Adams--Sunrise from Mt Hood Lodge

SWY573

Mt Hood from Sand Creek Camp

SWY574

Sunrise--Mt Hood from Mt Hood Lodge

SWY575

Runset--Mt Hood from Mt Hood Lodge

SWY576

Summit of Castle Rock, Trails Club Outing April 15, 1917

SWY577

Skunk Cabbage in Bloom

SWY578

Ferns and Trilliums

SWY579

Wild Sheep, Glacier Park

SWY580

Wild Sheep, Glacier Park

SWY581

Chief Mountain, Glacier National Park

SWY582

Waterfall

SWY583

3 men, Native Americans?, on horseback by water

SWY585

Columbia Highway--Upper Falls, Eagle Creek, Rainbow Falls

SWY586

Columbia Highway, Gorge on Eagle Creek

SWY588

Columbia Highway, Eagle Creek Trail

SWY589

Waterfall

SWY590

Columbia Highway, Eagle Creek Upriver from High Bridge

SWY591

Columbia Highway, Eagle Creek Trail

SWY592

Eagle Creek from Columbia Highway

SWY593

The Sandy River & Columbia River

SWY594

Columbia River Highway, Sandy River

SWY595

Columbia River, Sunset from Cascades Downriver

SWY596

Lake view between trees

SWY597

Multnomah Falls

SWY599

Nestucca River near Tillamook, Oregon

SWY600

Tillamook-Portland Road, Cascade Range

SWY601

Sacagawea, City Park

SWY602

Unlabeled

SWY603

Our Camp, Bull Run Lake

SWY604

Camp, Lost Lake (McKim and the Birds)

SWY605

Bull Run Lake

SWY606

Mt Hood

SWY607

Mt Hood

SWY608

Mt Hood Showing Lake

SWY609

Mt Hood, Rocks

SWY610

Mt Hood , Trees

SWY611

Unlabeled

SWY612

Unlabeled

SWY613

Mt Hood from Lost Lake (Reflection)

SWY614

Clouds

SWY615

Mt Hood from Lost Lake, Sunet & Cloud Capped

SWY616

Mt Hood from Lost Lake, Sunrise

SWY617

Mt Hood from Lost Lake, Vine Maple Foreground--BROKEN

SWY618

Mt Hood from Bull Run Lake

SWY619

Runrise, Mt Hood from Bull Run Lake--Reflections