More files, more documenting. More work. As stated before, I am trying to get my archive files in some sort of order so that at a later date, it will be easier for people to find things. (Not that I really think anyone will go through this stuff once I’m gone, but I can retire with a clear conscience that yes, I did my job).

What has made this job difficult, yet interesting, is that various people have had numerous boxes of archives scattered throughout the City. A lot were mislabelled. These photos came from a box of glass plate negatives marked as ‘Loch Raven’ Bringing it all together in some sort of order is challenging. Chaos:

It is hard to believe that out of this construction chaos there will be built a reservoir so that the citizens of Baltimore will be able to enjoy drinking water. These are the pipes from the lake to the gate house (foundation in background).

Many years ago when I started this project, I had no clue about glass plate negatives, positive photos, restoration, etc. When I held the above GPN up to the light I thought it was a bad one – the white shown coming from the pneumatic jack hammers is black on the negative. I thought it was ruined until I processed it. Duh.

This one I have yet had a chance to restore. What I found interesting here is the suitcase in the upper right corner. Not only is this GPN broken, some of the image has peeled off.

Another interesting one from 1908 shows a church in the background. The writing on the sleeve said: Epiphany College in background.

Before building the lake the engineers had to move and raise the sewer/storm water manholes.

The photographer did a good job catching this dynamite blast at the right time.

This broken jigsaw puzzle plate I did restore.