Antique negatives bring early Flathead history to life

More than 1,000 photographic glass plate negatives left in storage for decades are starting to give shape to the life, art and humor of early Montana settlers who created homes on the northern edge of Flathead Lake. 

Matt Eccles’ life in the Flathead Valley began in 1886 with a nine-mile hike from his home northwest of Helena to the Northern Pacific Railroad. He took a train, then packed horses and paid $2.50 for passage across the Flathead Lake.

Eccles followed his two brothers’ lead to a field in Somers. There, the simple outline of a cabin marked by four logs was the start to the family’s homestead. He eventually became a sawmill owner in the Flathead Valley. Eccles was a good businessman who married late and never had children.

In his free time he was a collector. He accumulated National Geographic magazines and the newest technological gadgets. After sending away for a camera, he learned how to take and develop photographs that preserved the lives of his neighbors in the Flathead Valley.

Roughly 130 years after Eccles moved to the valley, the Museum at Central School staff are starting to pore over the moments he captured in the glass plate negatives.

“When you look at a negative, you get an idea, an outline of what’s there,” said William Brooks, a volunteer at the museum. “But once it’s scanned, or developed, that’s when you get to see a story.”

Eccles photographed life as a homesteader from the late 1800s into the 1920s.

In 2012, Ed Fine of Missoula donated the negatives to the museum. Until then the delicate plates were stored in his attic.

Gil Jordan, executive director of the Museum at Central School, said until recently the museum wasn’t sure what to do with the images.

“Now, after seeing how they reveal the mystic of early Montana, we’re all a little obsessed,” Jordan said.

The museum is now working to restore, archive and publish the collection.

Jordan said Brooks had the background to recognize the value of the plates.

While living in Germany, Brooks studied glass plate photography under portrait and documentary photographer August Sander. Sander, famous for his series titled “People of the 20th century,” was known for displaying his observations of human nature in his work.

“I saw that same effort in Eccles,” Brooks said. “When I saw the negatives, I thought at least these were special because of the time they documented. But what I saw as we started to scan them was more. He’s capturing his version of his community in a creative and meticulous way.”

Most of Eccles’ work gives light to the community around him. It shows buggy racing at the fairgrounds in Kalispell, families in their Sunday best surrounded by mud, and farmers working together to plow a field.

Mixed among the “everyday life sort of photos,” Eccles staged his neighbors as characters.

“His portraits, that’s where you start to see it,” Brooks said. “He’s posing things and people, not just recording, but showing stories, maybe from his head. The professional lighting and capturing of emotion, I don’t know where he got that from.”

In one image, two men face off in a card match. The card table is positioned in front of a white wall in Eccles’ attic. Each player has a pipe in hand and their hats tilted to the side. Two revolvers sit on the table — as if the game could change in a moment.

Brooks said even the way Eccles documented everyday life could be surprising.

A series of photos take viewers into a living room funeral. The first image shows the body of a woman dressed in all white, lying in a casket. The home, while elegant, looks mundane. Wallpaper covers the room and a shelf in the background has stacks of plates and collectible dolls. In the next image the shelves are hidden behind flowers, as bouquets cover the entire room, surrounding the casket.

“The ideas and technique, I’m not sure how he did it with the technology at that time,” Brooks said. “You see in his photos, he had vision and caring go together. He didn’t just pluck people in front of a camera, he cared and therefore was able to bring out their expressions and connections — as a community and to him, the photographer.”

CARLENE Brooner, of Kalispell, said she viewed Eccles as the quirky neighbor when she was growing up in Somers.

She remembers a night slowly turning the pages of his National Geographic — careful not to tear a page. Brooner’s parents were in the next room listening to Eccles’ newest toy, a phonograph.

Brooner described an image of a young version of her father lying in grass alongside two neighbors. The men were surrounded by apples.

“They looked like they were in pain, like they had been eating too much,” she said while laughing. “They were sprawled out in the grass; it was silly and fun. That’s what Matt did, he always had these ideas and of course everyone wanted to be part of it.”

Rand Robbin, a Bigfork artist and historian, is working with Brooks and other local experts to evaluate the value of Eccles’ work. He said flashes of memories like Brooner’s are one of the few ways to learn about Eccles’ life and work.

“I was around while Eccles was still alive, but didn’t get to know him. It’s almost frustrating trying to pull the pieces together now,” Robbin said. “From what I know, Eccles was one of the only people recording the [valley’s] earliest history, and was somehow self-taught.”

Robbin came to know Eccles’ images through a photo box in his childhood home his parents occasionally pulled out. It included a photo of one of the first post offices in town, which acted as a store and bar.

The photo was taken a half mile from where Robbin grew up near the Flathead River.

“For many people, Eccles’ photos were the only thing to send back home to show their success out West, the life and the property they had,” Robbin said. “The photos were important to people like my parents because they watched the valley grow and change — they recognized the importance of what was happening in the early days.”

WILLIAM Brooks’ office in the basement of the museum is starting to look like a time capsule for the decades Eccles captured in black and white.

For whatever reason, Eccles’ photos stopped in the 1920s. “He probably moved on to some new hobby,” Brooks said. “But like his work, and many of the people in his images, it’s a mystery.”

Jordan and Brooks hope to produce an exhibit of Eccles’ photography. Jordan said after working through half of the negatives, museum staff are interested in developing the film through traditional wet processing.In recent months, the museum has started a campaign Brooks calls “Dare to Care” to raise money for the project.

“We’ve seen enough to feel they’re important,” Jordan said. “I can see this becoming a traveling exhibition. If others agree with us — that this is art captivating history — then who knows what all can be done with it. But restoring and printing gets expensive and has unknown costs.”

Jordan said he’s waiting to hear whether the museum will receive a $50,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to fund the Eccles project.

A large chunk of the funding would go toward repairing negatives damaged by years of storage. Part of the funding effort includes supporting Brooks as the collection’s caretaker.

Brooks said through traditional processing, each print is unique based on how someone develops it in the dark room.

“That development is a second key part, after the photographer himself,” Brooks said.

Brooks said as a photographer who has fallen in love with Montana, he feels tied to Eccles’ work.

“Eccles saw beauty in the children, people, place,” Brooks said. “Preserving and providing access to Eccles’ archive is an opportunity to show gratitude to what this early community began, and shows visitors how and why the pioneers in Northwest Montana cared for this place and each other — how we care.”

Anyone interested in supporting or learning more about the Eccles project can call Brooks at (406) 756-8381.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.