I have added another 30 historic photos to the Park County Local History Archives website,
http://www.parkcoarchives.org
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[/center:pn3p8th1] [center:pn3p8th1]3266. Bailey. Circa 1870s. William G. Chamberlain photo. 101 Stereo View. Credit: Ed & Nancy Bathke Collection[/center:pn3p8th1]
Many of these photos are from the 1870s and 1880s and several were taken by professional photographers as stereograms.
The new photos can be found in the following Photo Gallery subjects:
Bailey 2 Circa 1870s Buckskin Gulch Circa 1880s Criterion Mine Circa 1880s Hayman Circa 1921 Horseshoe Circa 1870s Lake George School Circa 1920s Montgomery Circa 1870s.and 1880s Mosquito Gulch Circa 1880s Mount Lincoln Circa 1870s.and 1880s Nichols Family Circa 1930s and 1960s Placer Mines Circa 1880s South Platte River Circa 1880s Sovereign Mine Circa 1880s Van Dyke Family Circa early 1900s, 1940s - 1960s
Finally, just a reminder. The Park County Local History Archives is a non-profit organization completely supported by volunteers and donations. Your support would be greatly appreciated.
I too spend quite a while looking at the website and the GREAT old pictures. Thank you Sapp for adding the pictures and announcing them here.
Are you scanning the old photographs yourself to add them to the binary archive? I notice some of the pictures are low resolution and rather small. Or are you all having a professional archiver scan the photos? Just curious.
As you might imagine, getting the old photos on-line is a monumental task and the process has changed over time. I only started volunteering a couple years ago. Currently, the images are scanned by our archivist at 600dpi in TIF format. They are quite large as you might imagine. They are sent to me and I reduce them to 640 pixels wide and do what I can to improve the quality. (Many are extremely poor quality when I receive them.) In the early years, no effort was made to improve the quality and techniques used in the size reduction process lost a good deal of the resolution. So, you are correct in that some images are better than others.
One of the advantages I have in this process is access to the full resolution images. The detail in the original images taken by professional photographers with a large format view camera is amazing to say the least. Unfortunately, putting full resolution images on-line is not something we want to do. However, for those doing research, the full resolution images are available for purchase at a very modest fee.
You may also be interested in the how we obtained all these images. They are all donated. The originals are scanned and returned to the donor. The donor provides a "deed" allowing us to use the photos for public use. Without these generous contributions, these historical records would not be available to everyone to enjoy. We are truly indebted to literally hundreds of donors who recognize the value of historical preservation and appreciate the need for public use.
Thanks for you quick reply Sapp. I can image the amount of work involved in first obtaining the old images and then creating binary copies. Thank you for taking the time to do all this as well as the other volunteers. The pictures of days gone by are so fascinating! I tried to decide where the original store was here in Shaffers Crossing but couldn't. I guess I'd have to print one of the pictures and go stand in todays Shaffers Crossing to determine where the building was.
I noticed that the maps were lists and not links (for the most part). Is this because they are not digitized?
I worked with the BLM for a while in the 90's. One of the people there got me a copy of the original patent for my land and an old map showing the original Rt. 285. It was sooo interesting. I often look for the old road beds in our area when we hike and wonder about the people who used them way back.
TillerBee wrote: Thanks for you quick reply Sapp. I can image the amount of work involved in first obtaining the old images and then creating binary copies. Thank you for taking the time to do all this as well as the other volunteers. The pictures of days gone by are so fascinating! I tried to decide where the original store was here in Shaffers Crossing but couldn't. I guess I'd have to print one of the pictures and go stand in todays Shaffers Crossing to determine where the building was.
I noticed that the maps were lists and not links (for the most part). Is this because they are not digitized?
I worked with the BLM for a while in the 90's. One of the people there got me a copy of the original patent for my land and an old map showing the original Rt. 285. It was sooo interesting. I often look for the old road beds in our area when we hike and wonder about the people who used them way back. I often look for the old road beds in our area when we hike and wonder about the people who used them way back.
I just picked up a copy of "The Elk Creek Chronicles - Shaffer's Crossing to Pine Grove" by David Nelson. It is an interesting book but I do not think it locates exactly where the Shaffer's Store was. However, the Hiwan Homestead Museum in Evergreen has over 7000 photos in their archives, perhaps they can help.
Our map collection is too large to digitize efficiently. I did the "South Park - 1875" map as a demonstration, but it was tedious to say the least. I could be done but we would have to hire a professional to scan in the maps and develop a process to search and retrieve them on-line. Of course, funding is an issue that only a grant could satisfy (or a generous benefactor). Perhaps, a project for the coming years. In the mean time, the hardcopy maps are available at our "office" (I use the term loosely) at the Bailey Library. We are using this small space until the new library in Fairplay is completed. Then, we will have the space we need to adequately store our materials. And, have resources available for public research.
Re: Old roads. You sound like my better half. She is always commenting "That's where the old road went." I have hard time figuring out where today's roads go, much less roads of a 100 years ago.
[/center:pn3p8th1] [center:pn3p8th1]3266. Bailey. Circa 1870s. William G. Chamberlain photo. 101 Stereo View. Credit: Ed & Nancy Bathke Collection[/center:pn3p8th1] 
