Collections

Trinidad Museum Society has acquired a number of significant Native American collections over the years. These are featured in both permanent and rotating exhibits and some have been described in our Newsletters and Books.  

Two major TMS participants, Katie Boyle and Ned Simmons, have provided us with extensive collections of historical photographs and manuscript materials. In particular, the Katie Boyle Collection has been digitized and is searchable through the Humboldt State University Library Humboldt Room photograph database. Here is a snippet from the finding aid for that collection:

“Katie Boyle taught school in the lumber company town of Crannell the last year the school was open, 1948-49, and from then until her retirement in 1983 in Trinidad. One of her objectives as a teacher was to bring history alive for her students and instill in them an awareness of the local history of the Trinidad area. During the 1960s she and her husband Bill, who worked for Hammond Lumber Company and its successors in Crannell, took classes in photography and became accomplished amateur photographers. Their interests led them to document both the contemporary history of the area for over 20 years as well as to copy historical photograph collections belonging to many Trinidad area residents….

Katie created many historical displays using these photographs for every imaginable event in the Trinidad area from the late 1960s through the 1980s. She also worked very closely with the Trinidad Museum Society (TMS) where many of her photographs were developed into Museum exhibits. In 1989 TMS obtained a grant from the Humboldt Area Foundation for this purpose and Patti Spears prepared a major exhibit, working from prints developed by Bill. Katie also encouraged TMS volunteers, Ned Simmons and Elmer (“Lindy”) Linberg, beginning in 1992, to make copy prints for TMS of most of the negatives before the negatives were gifted to HSU.”