The Galena Mining and Historical Museum late Wednesday posted on Facebook this video of very old film footage of Galena, Kansas, much of it believed to be in the 1920s.
It shows a variety of scenes around town, including its lead and zinc-mining industries.
The museum posted this message with the footage:
This video was recently discovered on an old VHS tape at our museum. Despite its poor quality, it’s still a treasure! Although little is known about the origin of the film, it is believed to have been shot by the late Glen Harreld (1900-1969) a Galena photographer. Sometime shortly after Mr. Harreld’s death, a local resident purchased most of Mr. Harreld’s photography equipment, film negatives, and other items from his studio. Among these items was a 16mm film.
In the early 1970s, the new owner had the original 16mm film ‘duplicated’ onto Super 8 film. To accomplish this, the original 16mm footage would have been projected onto a screen and then ‘re-shot’ with a Super 8 camera. Subsequently, sometime after 1976 and the introduction of VHS video cassettes, the Super 8 footage was duplicated onto VHS. Similarly, the Super 8 footage would have been projected onto a screen and recorded with a VHS camera. As you can imagine, as each generation was transferred to a new medium the quality of the footage degraded. Any VHS version of the movie would be at least a 3rd generation copy. To make matters worse, the VHS tape containing the footage we found was a copy dubbed onto a VHS cassette that had previously been used.
To date, we’ve been unsuccessful at tracking down the original 16mm film. If found, this original film print could be scanned and processed to reveal unimaginable detail. So, our search continues!
By posting this video to Facebook, we’re hoping to glean more information about the footage from you and other viewers. You’ll certainly recognize many of the buildings and locations, and we encourage you to discuss the video and comment on what you recognize. One of the last sequences of the film captures the Sapp Opera House fire which we know occurred on March 8, 1931. Perhaps you’re a car buff. What information can be deduced from the cars in the footage? To help with the discussion, we’ve added a timecode to the bottom of the video so you can direct attention to a specific event. We’re excited to see what you discover!
(Hat tip to Renee Charles; screen-capture image of 1920s Galena street scene from old film footage)
I’m not a “car buff” … but I notice that there is a mixture of left- and right-hand drive automobiles in the footage.
This website (https://www.horseless.com/right-hand.html) says Henry Ford started producing left-hand-drive Model Ts in 1908 and that “(t)he last American cars to switch were Pierce-Arrow in 1920 and Stutz the following year although Stutz did offer right-hand steering on some 1921 & ’22 models.”
Good catch. So my guesstimate of it being primarily 1920s footage turned out to be pretty accurate.
I didn’t think it was the teens, because there simply weren’t that many cars on the road at that time. This footage shows a mix of horses and cars, which screams “early 1920s.”
What a wonderful and fascinating piece of history! I agree about the time-frame. Notice also girls’ & women’s skirt-lengths halfway between the ankle and the knee. That wasn’t possible in the MIddlewest until the 1920s. The men’s clothing, especially younger men, tends to approach what we think of as the 3-piece suit with a shorter blazer. Let us hope against hope that the original 16 mm print still exists somewhere and that it will be rediscovered.