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No dates on your photos? SOHS 16147 Jonathan Gerking and Loren Harmon pose for a 1913 advertisement. They are included in a new book on Jackson County photographers. Shutterbug history can help nail them By Bill Varble of the Mail Tribune You know those photos that Grandma never labeled on the back? And now nobody knows who's who, or when and where the pictures were taken? Imagine having hundreds of thousands of those pictures. The Southern Oregon Historical Society has about 750,000 photos from the past century-and-a-half, and many are shrouded in mystery. Now a new book compiled by SOHS historian Bill Alley fills in some of the gaps. Alley says the goal of "A Century of the Photographic Arts in Southern Oregon" is to nail down the names and dates of all the photographers known to have worked in Jackson County from 1856 to 1956. Easy to say, not so easy to do. "We're slowly chipping away on it," Alley says. "If you know who took the picture, it helps date the photo. You can narrow that window. If it was taken by the Issotts, we know it was between 1919 and 1927." James and Anna Issott had a photo studio above Hubbard's on the northwest corner of Main Street and Riverside Avenue. Alley says he started making a list, and the project just grew. The list now runs to more than 140 shutterbugs, starting with Peter Britt in 1852. Many early photographers were itinerant, going by wagon from town to town, staying until they'd worked the market, moving on. Others stayed in the community. Some shared studio space with others in a shifting pattern of alliances and breakups. One enterprising soul even used a railroad car for his business. The "Boston R.R. Photo Car" came through Southern Oregon in the fall of 1894. And way back when, there were no phone books or Polk's city directories. Alley says newspapers were a major source. "They used to run personal columns," he says. "It might say, `Mr. Campbell opened a studio today."' He dated one collection of photos by the movie titles on a marquee that was in the background of some shots. We know a lot about some of the early photographers. Britt, for example, gave up his mining and hauling businesses after an 1856 trip to San Francisco on which he bought a camera and supplies. Frank and Josephine Patterson produced two well-known photo products in 1920s Medford: hand-colored landscapes (usually of Crater Lake) and scenic postcards. By 1926 Patterson was the largest producer of scenic postcards in the West. J. Vern Shangle came to Medford in 1927 and became of the region's top photographers. His business manager, Juenesse Butler, left his studio to become a reporter for the Mail Tribune. Shangle retired in 1952 and sold the studio to Carl Landis, who stayed in business until 1972. Other photographers move through the books like phantoms. Orville Dodge worked out of a tent in the Civil War era, then vanished, then turned up in Roseburg in 1867. A.L. Bailey set up his tent up across from the county courthouse in Jacksonville (now a SOHS museum) in 1902 but was soon gone. Some photographers plied the trade part-time. H.T. Baughman, of Talent, was also a haberdasher. W. Earl Blake, of Ashland, was a dentist. Noah Bennett, of Medford, was a nurseryman. Some two dozen of these pioneering photographers were women. "This is one of those industries that welcomed them," Alley says. Old-time photographers worked in a variety of media. Daguerreotypes, patented in 1839, were popular until the time of the Civil War. Ambrotypes were popular in the 1850s and '60s. Tintypes were popular from 1856 until well into the 20th century. The photographers are listed alphabetically, from the A&M Photo Company of Medford ("scenic photographers") to C.E. Yeager, of Medford, a home-based portraitist who in 1921 advertised "baby pictures taken in your own home." "A Century of Photographic Arts in Southern Oregon" was printed by Ram Offset Lithographers in White City. It goes on sale Jan. 20 ($8.95, or ($7.50 for SOHS members) at SOHS locations downtown and at the Rogue Valley Mall. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA