Lost Images of West Baden Springs - In the News

Photos may save black church | Valley History Discovered in Pile of Boxes | Photo Debut at Banquet on April 19th

 

Louisville Courier-Journal - April 12, 2006

Photos may save black church: 'Lost Images' of hotel guests to benefit West Baden landmark

By Steve Chaplin
Special to The Courier-Journal

After being boxed up for decades, lost photographs from the heyday of West Baden Springs' resort society could help efforts to restore a historic African-American church.

It's ironic and appropriate, preservationists sa id, that the nearly 100-year-old photographs of white guests at West Baden Springs Hotel will be used to draw attention to saving a church whose members catered to those guests.

The West Baden Springs First Baptist Church, which was built in 1909 and is at the southeast corner of Sinclair and Elm streets, was deeded to the West Baden Springs Historical Society in 1992 by its last surviving member, Dorothy Smith .

"The last living members of the church basically entrusted it to a bunch of white people," said Amy Drake, a professional photographer and member of the historical society. "I think it's important we preserve this part of West Baden's history."

"The Lost Images of West Baden Springs" will be shown at the society's annual banquet next week. The program will include 75 images taken from restored glass negatives believed made between 1910 and 1930. The images are among a collection of 231 restored negatives donated to the society last year.

Little is known about the images, and only one person has been identified from them since restoration began last year. All of the people in the images are white, and most are taken in the style of "tourist" photographs, most likely by a hotel photographer .

"Based on the clothing styles and the features evident in the hotel and the grounds, we believe they were taken between 1910 and 1930," Drake said. "We think it's kind of ironic that the people in these photographs would have been the ones being waited on by the people who went to the church."

The images show guests posed in the hotel's rotunda, around it s large outdoor fountain, at its golf course and in the shade of its long wooden porch. The negatives, found in 1991 at Indiana University in Bloomington by staff of the Indiana Geological Survey office, didn't seem to fit with other photos at the department.

"That was 15 years ago, but I remember we went and picked them up somewhere," recalled Jeff Kirby of the Indiana Geological Survey. "I think it was a private collection, maybe from a company that had to do with limestone quarries. Then we discovered those other photos (of the West Baden Springs Hotel), and they really didn't fit in with our interests."

The geology department called the Paoli Public Library . Librarian Carole Vance said the school gave the negatives to the library after deciding a repository in Orange County would be fitting. "They were something rare to me," she said. Vance and other library officials decided last year that the historical society should become the final repository.

The 5-inch- by- 7-inch glass negatives have been in the hands of restorers the past year. Copies were put on computer dis ks and will be shown to guests at the society's banquet.

The church has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992, and more than $30,000 from loans secured through Historic Landmarks of Indiana has paid for a new roof, foundation and exterior paint job. The landmarks agency has approved a plan by the local group to restore the church's 11 gothic-style stained-glass windows.

Jeff Lane, an Orange County historian, school teacher and member of the West Baden historical society, said restoring the church is significant because it's the only one of three churches remaining that were built by hotel financier Lee Sinclair . The only other African-American church in the West Baden Springs-French Lick area is also gone, he added.

"We don't feel like that group of people have been given the proper recognition," Lane said. "We'd like to offer the church, once restored, as a wedding chapel and a museum and as a meeting place that is also devoted to the African-American community."

As preservationists seek to identify the people in the images, they also hope a renewed interest in local history can help pay for restoration of the church interior. Fundraising efforts include sale of a window-hanging sun catcher that contains a rendition of the church in a blue glass background.

West Baden Springs Hotel was an "in" place in the early 1900s. Gambling was overlooked and the mineral springs' purported medicinal qualities drew guests from around the nation. Elite families such as the DuPonts and Studebakers visited, and heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis trained there, so preservationists believe the old photographs should spark interest .

"We've only been able to identify one person in all of the photos so far," Drake said. "But they've been on a long path, from the photographer to where they are with us today."

 

Springs Valley Herald - April 5, 2006

Valley History Discovered in Pile of Boxes

BY RYAN ANDERSON
ryan@ocpnews.com
Staff Writer

About 15 years ago, a closet was being cleaned out in the geology department at Indiana University and a very interesting and somewhat perplexing discovery was made. There, among the clutter, lay several boxes containing 231 glass-plate negatives from the early days of the West Baden Springs Hotel, some of which have been estimated at nearly 100 years old.

How or why those negatives ended up at IU is unknown. However, one of the discoverers recognized them and decided their rightful residence was the library in the county seat of their origin.

Carole Vance, director of the Paoli Public Library, said after she received them, she wanted to find a way for the public to view the images without handling them because they are so old.

"Don Mauger was a local man," said Vance. "He loved history and he also had a hobby of doing photography, so I showed those glass plates to him and he took them home and made copies. So we've had the pictures here that people can look at. He also made a set and gave them to the West Baden Historical Society."

Only within the past year was it suggested by one of the board members that something more be done with the negatives.

"One of our board members brought it up, so then they contacted [Orange County Historian] Jeff Lane and we just went from there," she said. "They wanted to keep them in the county, so we gave them to the West Baden Historical Society."

Upon seeing the plates for the first time, the thoughts of several historical society members immediately turned to preservation and restoration. Local photographer Amy Drake suggested the negatives be taken to Quick Pic in Bloomington so they could be digitized.

"We walked in the door and said, 'We have these glass negatives that we're interested in getting scanned. Is that something that you can do?'" recalled Drake, "and the woman that we're talking to says, 'Hi, I'm Jessie and I'm studying to be a rare books librarian. I know what to do with these.'"

Drake and Lane waited while Jessie called her professor just to confirm how the old negatives should be cleaned. The bottoms, he said, could be cleaned with a regular glass cleaner, but the images couldn't be touched and would have to be cleaned using an air compressor. Jessie and her co-workers went through pair after pair of white gloves as they cleaned the filthy negatives.

Once the negatives were scanned at a high resolution and placed on a CD, the real work began. Drake is now in the process of working with each file in Photoshop, removing specks, scratches, fading and other problems from the images.

"Because of the way that they were stored, there have been a couple of issues," said Drake, who has spent countless hours on the digital restoration. "As the cardboard breaks down, it releases a gas that has an acid that is not good for the emmulsion, so a lot of them are faded down the edges or sometimes the whole picture, depending on where it is in the stack."

Since the boxes were never stored in a climate controlled environment, the humidity was able to have its way with the negatives, leaving many of them stuck together.

"As we were going through them we noticed that in one there was a woman's legs on a man's pant leg and that's just where the emmulsion had stuck from her picture onto his," said Drake. "It was actually really good because I was able to copy the legs from the picture where they were stuck and Photoshop them back into her picture and now she has legs again."

Drake estimates that she spends about an hour restoring "bad" photos, but admitted there are several on which she has spent three or four hours.

"There have been times when I've planned on spending a couple of hours on them and I look up and it's 2 a.m. and I've spent six hours," she said.

Although the undertaking has been incredibly time consuming, Drake said she enjoys it and has found ways to pass the time as she painstakingly removes tiny specks, one by one.

"They make fun of me because every picture I make up stories about who these people are what's going on," she said, laughing. "I make up these stories like, Oh, obviously, she's the young wife here and he must be wealthy because she's way too pretty for him, and things like that. Or you'll look at a family and think that these kids might still be alive and wonder what their lives have been like and what they remember about this time."

Drake said the easiest pictures to place in a time period are the ones with women in them. Most of the men are usually pictured in suits, which look very similar from one generation to the next. Women's fashion, however, has changed relatively rapidly and noticeably over the years.

One of the many mysteries of these negatives that historian and West Baden Historical Society member Jeff Lane would like to solve is the identity of the photographer(s).

"I have not seen any pictures that have anything to do with French Lick at all," said Lane. "That's kind of why I think they must have been taken by the resident photographer who was on the grounds of the West Baden Hotel. We went through the Orange County census from 1880 to 1930 and have located the names of definite Orange County photographers, but there is no information I am aware of that would tell us who actually took them."

One thing the photographer did, which led to some confusion, was he kept his negatives in the original boxes. A warning is on the outside of each box, stating that if the contents are exposed to light, they will be damaged. Well, that is true, but only for the plates which hadn't been shot yet, of which there was none left.

"We thought we needed to be very careful not to expose them to light, but it didn't make sense," said Drake. "They have to be exposed to light to make prints."

Drake and Lane eventually figured out what the photographer had done and realized that it was perfectly safe to expose the negatives to light, as is the case with standard film negatives. Going forward, the glass plates will be stored individually in special archive-quality envelopes.

"There are so many interesting details that we've noticed, even in the background, like the stables [which burned down]," said Lane. "In the picture of the golf tournament, we noticed a stairway that once came from the open porch down to the golf course, which isn't there anymore."

Many photos contain clues, leaving the option open for someone with the time and the desire to discover more information. For instance, one photo shows three young men standing on a balcony in the atrium of the West Baden Hotel. In the background is a banner that says, "Kenyon College."

"When I saw that, the first thing I did was open a web browser and Google Kenyon College and there it is in Ohio, still going today," said Drake. "There are a couple of other pictures that are obviously exhibits at some kind of convention or something and I had to stop and Google them to see if I could find anything about any of those companies. It's all just so cool."

Springs Valley Herald - April 5, 2006

Photo Debut at Banquet on April 19th

BY RYAN ANDERSON
ryan@ocpnews.com
Staff Writer

Although there are a few leads, no one is sure of the identity of the photographer who took the 231 recently restored pictures, but it is probably safe to say that he or she never imagined that they would be published in a book nearly 100 years later.

If members of the West Baden Historical Society get their way, that's exactly what will happen with the "Lost Images of West Baden," which were donated to the society by the Paoli Public Library.

According to Amy Drake, who is spearheading both the restoration and the publishing effort, the first focus of the historical society is to get through its upcoming banquet (which will be at Wilstem Guest Ranch on April 19 at 6 p.m.), at which many of the photos will be viewed publicly for the first time in decades.

"We've been focused on preparing for the banquet and I haven't had a chance to work on publishing options at all," said Drake, although she has contacted Indiana University Press about the idea. "That's still where we're headed, we just have to get the banquet out of the way before we can concentrate on that."

Drake said the initial response from IU Press was very positive, but she will need to submit a formal book proposal before any action can be taken.

Many of the photos, which were almost exclusively taken at the West Baden Springs Hotel, depict couples or small groups of people gathered at one of the fountains with the dome in the background. There are other pictures, though, including several photos of structures which no longer exist, such as the cathedral and the stables.

Those attending the banquet can expect a catered meal with a slide show presentation to follow. Many of the pictures will be displayed during the show and members will explain the process by which the historical society came into possession of the glass-plate negatives. There will also be a presentation by a representative from Quick Pic photo lab in Bloomington , which helped with cleaning and scanning the images.

"We're going to show, I'd say it's not quite a third of the pictures," said Drake, who has spent countless hours restoring the images on her computer. "I know I have enough good images, but there is still a lot of clean-up that I want to do before we do any kind of publishing."

Drake also plans to show "before" and "after" pictures at the banquet, which will give an idea of the kind of work she has done to improve the photos.

Orange County Historian Jeff Lane believes that some of the images are of local people, not just hotel guests. He is certain that at least one photo is of a former Valley resident and is hopeful that others will recognize relatives after seeing the pictures.

"I've always been good at recognizing faces and this lady has a very unique appearance, I would say," said Lane of the woman he identified. "Her name was Pearl Bedster and her father was a doctor in West Baden . I remember her probably when she was in her 80s and 90s and her facial expression never changed. She just got older."

Lane said Bedster's father, Dr. Ritter, owned a hotel in West Baden at one time, The Ritter House.

"One of the neatest moments through all of this has been when Jeff realized that he knew someone from one of the photos," said Drake. "That was so exciting that he knew part of her story, who she was, who she was married to. We're so hopeful that there will be people who recognize relatives.

"We really hope that if we do publish a book and it gets out in the region, that we'll get phone calls and e-mails from all over saying, 'Yes, this is our great uncle. We've heard stories about how they went to West Baden every year.' We're really hopeful that will be exactly what happens."

Until a book is published, which would not be for quite some time, if ever, the historical society's annual banquet is the only place these images can be viewed. There will be some pictures posted on its website, but not many.

"I can't wait to see the reaction," said Lane. "I can't imagine what some people are going to say and do when they see these for the first time. It's just incredible that these have survived."

For more information about the annual banquet and photo slide show, including reservation details, log on to http://www.westbadenhistory.org.