Written by Clay Riley – Many patrons have either donated or shared old family photographs with the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society and the Brownwood Public Library’s Genealogy & Local History Branch. The library offers a unique and valuable service to the community. That service is scanning or digital archiving of old photographs and documents. The only fee for this service, is the permission to add these digital images to our collection to share with family historians and researchers.

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The Library Archivist, Karen Fair, has digitized hundreds if not thousands of these treasured family heirlooms. When our patrons share their old photographs, they receive a DVD with all of the images in high resolution digital files for safe keeping and sharing with family members.

All of the originals are returned to the donor of course, along with their digital copies.

Shown here is a recent photograph that was shared with us, which shows a collection of Brownwood business men in 1898 inside the Coggin Ford Bank Building, that still exists on Baker Street. Many of the individuals’ faces are being seen by us for the first time.

The location and names of the individuals were sketched in silhouette and numbered on the back of the photo. That is a rare occurrence for most old photographs. Most of our ancestors never took the time to label their photographs. That is a good lesson for us not to follow. Three portions were enlarged so that you can see the detail of this treasure.

The images of J.R. Looney (#4), Merchant and city benefactor, G.S. Howard (#6), prominent attorney and others that have not been seen before, look across the generations. Additional images of Henry Ford (#8), County Clerk and Banker and S.R. Coggin (#12), Banker, Rancher and Brown County benefactor, give us another perspective of these city fathers.

It is amazing to look into these faces from over 100 years ago, and wonder what they would think of the world in which we live.

If you have old photographs that you would like to have preserved, come by the library at 213 S, Broadway, and reserve a time-slot to have your photographic heirlooms recorded with Karen Fair. Collection preservation has to be scheduled to accommodate our patrons.

The photos used in this column are from the Brownwood Public Library collection.

This and many other stories are available at the Brownwood Public Library – Genealogy & Local History Branch at 213 S. Broadway. Volunteers from the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society are there to assist you with your family or local history research.

Clay Riley is a local historian and retired Aerospace Engineer that has been involved in the Historical and Genealogical Community of Brown County for over 20 years. 

Should you have a comment, or a question that he may be able to answer in future columns, he can be reached at; [email protected].