The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Photos capture local history
PUBLISHED: May 24, 2007
When I found today's featured photo, it was glued into a cheap scrapbook with rubber cement. The photographer was a Boy Scout in the eighth or ninth grade. He did not have any fancy scissors. No cute stickers. No catchy album covers.
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Actually, the scrapbook that carried this picture across the years has plain black pages, and is bound together at one end with nothing but a shoelace.
Rolland Drake is my hero because he grabbed his little camera and shot this fantastic picture of the camel stepping toward the circus tent in Milan. Just behind the camel was an elephant, and our photographer managed to pull his film forward quickly to take another shot. The elephant picture was glued onto the black page by the camel and a shot of the circus tents.
Rolland was probably born in about 1899. He attended Milan schools, graduating from Milan High in 1917. His older brother, Byron, graduated two years earlier. Both boys played basketball on the high school team and both enjoyed taking pictures.
One of Byron's photos has survived the test of time. It has been shown in this newspaper by the late Warren Hale when he wrote his "Way Back When" column. Byron climbed the water tower and grabbed a photographic view of Milan rooftops along East Main Street toward the school that used to be on Hurd Street.
That rooftop photo, along with hundreds of other Milan historic pictures, is available for free at the Milan Public Library thanks to Millard Phillips. I make computerized reproductions of Milan's historic pictures, and Phillips organizes them into a book with an index. We have more than 600 pictures, so far. In many cases, I just scan someone's historical picture and then give it back to the owner.
Rolland didn't have a computer, scanner or photo-enhancing software. He just slapped some rubber cement on the back of his photos and squished them onto the pages of an economy-style scrapbook. He deserves a prize for capturing a large piece of history and bringing it to us almost a century later, clear and crisp.
In addition to carrying his trusty camera to the circus, Rolland aimed his camera at the Boy Scout tents when his troop went camping in the Irish Hills. He also took quite a few photos of Niagara Falls, which he visited with his Scout troop, and got snapshots of his friends, as well.
Rolland was by no means a professional photographer, but by clicking his camera around, he shared his world with future generations, including us.
Today's throw-away cameras probably take better quality pictures than Rolland's black-and-white snapshots. Digital cameras are so easy to use. Young children can take pictures that are perfectly in focus because the camera is smarter than the person holding it. Just about any kid can beg, borrow or buy a camera, and create a scrapbook 10 times nicer than Rolland's for just a few dollars.
So, do it. Get going. Hand a low-cost camera to a kid. Buy a bottle of acid-free rubber cement. Pick up an economy-style scrapbook, or make your own. Write a note next to each picture, telling who, where and when.
Maybe a picture of yours will last through the years, pop up 100 years from now, and give people a view of your world.
Martha Churchill is a member of the Milan Area Historical Society. She can be reached at 649-6342 or Milanhistory@yahoo.com.
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