Archiving the history of print

The photos provide a trip back to the 1940s, ‘50’s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s of San Mateo County life and its people.

It was a big acquisition for the association and San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City for those interested in the history of the Peninsula, said Mitch Postel, president of the association. This find is in the top five of all the collections Postel has obtained in his 28-year career with the association, he said.

"It’s one of the largest collections we’ve taken in and will have great significance for researchers,” he said.

The San Mateo Times was sold to the Alameda Newspaper Group in 1996 and was renamed the San Mateo County Times. Most of the newspaper’s property was moved to across the Bay to the Oakland Tribune. The San Mateo County Times is now part of MediaNews Group and operates as an edition of the San Jose Mercury News.

More than 20 boxes containing hundreds of newspaper photos were obtained in March. A collector from Marin County first purchased the photos, which included San Francisco and San Mateo County photos. When Postel heard about the San Mateo collection, he began to negotiate with the collector to acquire them for museum use.

"The collector sold them to us for $2,500,” said Postel. "He did us a favor with the price.”

The images captured in these photos illustrate many news scenes including car accidents and construction, but also features like people at the beach and portrait shots. Ninety-nine percent of the photos are directly out of San Mateo County, with a few photos associated with larger news stories, like the governor of California. The vast majority of photos are portraits of individuals from all sorts of topics, including obituaries, news stories and feature stories, he said.

"The portrait shots are of people I’ve heard about but never seen,” said Postel.

A notable discovery was a photo of John Daly, the founder of Daly City, which Postel said they never had before in their collections.

It is now Postel’s goal to gather journalists who were around when these photos were published to explain the significance of these photos and why these people were in the news.

"We have names and dates, but not why they are important,” he said.

Older journalists are especially needed to help with photos that date back to the 1970s and earlier. Postel has been in communication with the president of the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club, Marshall Wilson, in working to find journalists to identify the photos. One photo that Postel remembered was a street scene in San Bruno that captured the Jax Drive-in restaurant from 1949, which was located near the present Walgreens on El Camino Real.

"It used a wide angle shot. You can see a lot of El Camino and the undeveloped hills, the cool cars and the way people dressed. There is so much you can get out of that photo,” he said.

The main goal is for the collection to be arranged so it can be available on display for the public’s use. A couple thousand have been identified so far, but the process still has a while to go with a completion estimate at about six months to one year, he said.

"Once it is cataloged, it will be organized so the public can search them and make copies if they like,” said Postel. "It was an important 40-year period with a lot of dynamic things happening.”

The San Mateo County Historical Association can be reached at (650) 299-0104.