Scope and Contents:
This collection contains undated photographs in or near Westfield, Illinois. Woods, cornfields, farm animals, town events, and scenes along the North Fork of the Embarras (or "Embraw") River are pictured.
About 350 photographs are mounted in two large volumes, many with notations as to their location. About 40 additional photographs are loose, a few identified. A previous owner of the collection and Ryan D'Arcy, a Westfield historian, have identified many photographs.
Some of these notations refer to the owners of the farms or to the roads that are pictured. The roads include County 32 (between Westfield and Illinois 130), which runs into Charleston; State 49, which runs north of Westfield; and apparently other roads that connect with Casey and Marshall, Illinois. The photographs thus picture parts of Clark, Coles, and Edgar Counties.
The majority of the pictures are of fields, farms, or woods, mainly in summertime, showing a variety of basswood, elm, sycamore, and white oak. Old but still functional split rail fences enclose some farms.
There are views of "Colt Show" Days in Westfield, harness racing in Casey Park, early oil rigs, a crowded riverboat, and a flood in town. A few pictures--of parades of Civil War veterans and of Odd Fellows and of Westfield's Methodist (now Baptist) Church--are reproduced as an endpaper and on pages 4 and 27 of the History of Westfield Illinois and Northwest Clark County 1981, published by Hurst Kesler. Some photographs, mostly unidentified, are of people, early cars, and scenes in the American West. A single photographer (conceivably Hoarce Fulwider of Redmon) took most of the pictures.
The collection was acquired by the Library in 1997.
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