The Progress 'negative' photos are best followed on our FACEBOOK page for a more complete collection!

Julie Houston and the Clearfield Historical Society are preserving a valuable and unique window on Clearfield and Centre County’s past by publishing old negatives from The Progress and other sources on the Internet.

Houston, of Morrisdale, and board member of the historical society, is scanning old photograph negatives obtained by The Progress and publishing them on The Negative Project-Clearfield Historical Society’s Facebook page for the entire world to see.

The photographs have quickly become immensely popular and are now being viewed by thousands of people from all over the country, Houston said.

For much of its 100-plus year history, The Progress used film cameras for its photographs and its photographers carefully preserved the negatives and stored them in the attic of the former Progress building on E. Locust Street in Downtown Clearfield.

Over the years, the collection grew immense. When The Progress decided to move to its new location on E. Market Street a few years ago, Progress Publisher Pat Patterson recognized the importance of the collection, and offered to donate it to the historical society for preservation.

“These pictures tell stories that are so important to Progressland,” Patterson said.

Former President Dave Wulderk of the historical society brought the proposal to the society’s board of directors and it approved accepting the collection, Houston said. The historical society then hired a moving company to relocate the large collection and stored it in the historical society’s Carriage House.

The historical society staff was busy with other projects, so the collection sat in storage for several years until last Christmas. At the time, the area was experiencing bitter cold temperatures causing one of the pipes to burst in the building. Fortunately, the collection wasn’t damaged, but Houston said she became concerned that if something happened to the collection, this history would be lost forever.

So Houston proposed at the historical society’s January board meeting to purchase a negative scanner to preserve the photographs for posterity.

The purchase was approved and Houston set up the scanner in her home office and began scanning the negatives. When the first pictures showed up on her computer screen, Houston said she was “stunned.”

“I couldn’t believe how beautiful they were,” Houston said. “I was blown away at what I was seeing.”

The pictures covered a wide variety of topics of life in Central Pennsylvania including parades, Christmas celebrations, Boy Scouts at camp, spelling bees, concerts, fires, snowstorms, festivals and fairs, social and civic organizations, citizenship ceremonies and sporting events, local businesses of Clearfield and Centre counties including Clearfield, Curwensville, Houtzdale, Philipsburg and Coalport.

Most of the pictures are extremely sharp and clear, allowing one to see people’s facial expressions as well as the the buildings and storefronts showing how local towns once looked.

The pictures are from the 1940s to the early 2000s when The Progress switched from film cameras to digital cameras. The first color photographs began showing up in 1982, Houston said.

One of the early photo sets is from 1941 of the “Clearfield Battery B 190 Artillery Boys and the 104th Cavalry Troop.” The reserves had been called up to travel to Fort Indiantown Gap in March of 1941 as World War II raged in Europe and Asia.

Most of the pictures in the collection were never published by The Progress because its photographers would take multiple pictures of an event, but only one or two would be published in the newspaper, Houston said.

Although they don’t have any words, Houston said the pictures themselves tell important stories of Central Pennsylvania’s past.

Houston said some of her favorite photo sets are of Billy Bell, a longtime Progress newspaper carrier who delivered papers in the West Side of Clearfield using a wheelbarrow, and of longtime barber Henry Thon cutting hair in his barber shop.

The most viewed photoset so far is of the 1980 Penn State Blue White spring football game featuring pictures of Coach Joe Paterno, Franco Harris — and Todd Blackledge and Jeff Hostetler — as they battled for the team’s starting quarterback position. Blackledge would eventually be named the starter and would lead Penn State to win the National Championship during the 1982-83 season. Hostetler transferred to West Virginia University after the 1980 season and would go on to be the starting quarterback of the New York Giants when they won Super Bowl XXV in 1991.

Some of the negatives were stored in boxes or folders that labeled exactly what the collection included. Some were only labeled by year, but many had no labels at all and the collection contained very few names of the people in the pictures.

The historical society asked the community to participate in preserving this history and asked people post the names, events and places of any of the photographs they recognize when they see the photos on Facebook.

The response has been overwhelming, Houston said.

“Exactly what I hoped would happen, happened,” Houston said. “People are identifying the people, they are identifying the places, they are even identifying vehicle years,” Houston said.

She said people are even digging out old yearbooks and taking pictures of their contents and sending them to the historical society to help in identifying people.

She said the feedback from the public has been all positive.

“People really love the photographs,” Houston said.

She said recently a woman sent her an email saying she spotted her father’s picture in The Negative Project. She said her father died when he was a young and she didn’t have any photographs of him until now.

After she posted pictures of the Turkey Hill Festival in the 1970s, and they included a candid picture of an older couple. A man from California contacted her and said they were his grandparents.

“He went on and on about how much that photo meant to him because it captured them smiling and having fun,” Houston said.

Once people started seeing The Progress negatives, several photographers or families of former local photographers donated their negative collections to the historical society, and those pictures have been placed on the Facebook page as well, Houston said.

These photographs are also important because they show current generations why their ancestors settled here and why they loved living here so much.

“These pictures have so much charm,” Houston said. “It’s just enriching to everyone in the community to see how life was. It’s our history,” Houston said.

So far Houston said she has posted roughly 8,000 photographs but she said there are so many negatives, she could work for the rest of her life and not complete the project.

“There is that many negatives,” Houston said. “But we are very excited to be the caretakers of these negatives and to be able to share them,” Houston said.

“I am so happy that the historical society is able to do this,” Patterson said. “I would encourage everyone to express their gratitude as well.”

Patterson said most don’t realize that the people at the historical society do a lot of important work behind the scenes who don’t get recognized for their efforts.

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Negative Photo Project -

Clearfield County Historical Society
· 
Welcome to the 'Negative Project' sponsored by the the Clearfield County Historical Society.  The goal of this page is to share the history of Clearfield County and surrounding areas from the many negatives from our archives that we have started scanning.  The images are a wonderful glimpse into the past.  Many of the negatives have been donated from 'The Progress' newspaper files. There are also negatives that have been donated to the Clearfield County Historical Society by individuals throughout the years.  Please comment if you can identify people, places or memories of the photos.

Memorial Day Memories

Shull Studio Negatives

1948-1950, Clearfield High School Bison Yearbook

...see anyone you recognize ?

The Progress -  'Negative' photos of

Clearfield Elks - 100 year Celebration

The Progress -  'Negative' photos of

The Dimeling Hotel...

The Progress -  'Negative' photos of

Riverside Market, Clearfield about 1956

1941 - "Clearfield Battery B 190th Artillery Boys and 104th Cavalry Troop" 

"Billy"...Progress Land's Best !

Scroll down through these Progress Land photos....might find someone you know !

..click on photos to enlarge...