Fenton Historical Society and The A. J. Phillips Museum issued the following announcement on Mar 24.
Do you have what it takes to be a photograph detective?
One of the major jobs of our historians is to identify and date our many archived photographs. While they're not always able to identify the people in the photos, they are able to use clues to give them a general idea of when and where the photo was taken.
Let's use this photo as an example. We might be unsure of the identity of the bearded gentleman, but we can use the surroundings to help us narrow in on where he is and when this was taken.
Take a peek at the buildings to his left. Recognize any of them? AJ Phillips's business office (now Yesterdays Treasures) can be seen behind the horse cart, along with AJ Phillips's factory. This puts our gentleman right on LeRoy, about where the police station is now.
We know that the Phillips factory burned down in 1914, meaning that this photo was taken before that date. The building seen next to Phillips's office is the Riggs Hotel-- later known as the Everette House. This hotel was eventually bought by AJ Phillips himself and was removed to make room for his personal office (now our museum) in 1900. This tells us that this photograph is pre-1900s.
The wooden sidewalks tell us that the photo was taken before 1893 when concrete sidewalks were added in Fenton. Because we know that Fenton's powerlines were added around 1890, we're also able to gather that the photo is taken after that date-- due to the powerlines above and to the left of our bearded gentleman.
By just analyzing the picture, we now have an approximate date range for the photo: between 1890 and 1893. And we have nearly an exact location.
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up