Salesman and sometime photographer Richard Gilbert Potter collected and took local history photographs from the 1880s through the 1960s. From the more than 13,000 physical images in Photographic Archives’ R.G. Potter Collection, the Digital Collections website features a sample that includes such subjects as tornado-damaged streets; baseball greats Pee Wee Reese, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams; the corner soda fountain; street scenes; building interiors; and parades.
Plans are to update the digital collection periodically with new images and information from the physical collection.
Learn more and browse images at R.G. Potter Collection.
Digital Collections also has added to its online resources images from more than 5,000 nitrate negatives in the Photographic Archives’ Metropolitan Sewer District Collection.
The images date from about 1920 to 1940 and document the construction of sewer lines, drainage work and floodwall protection projects throughout Louisville. They also capture the city’s developing neighborhoods and changing geography, downtown and the Ohio River waterfront, the impact of the 1937 flood, and city residents.
Learn more and browse images at Metropolitan Sewer District Collection.
Top Photo: Tornado damage at 11th Street and Market Street looking east, from March 27, 1890 storm. ULPA P_00859, R. G. Potter Collection, Photographic Archives, University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky. digital.library.louisville.edu/cdm/ref/collection/potter/id/162
Bottom Photo: 38th at Duncan. MSD construction crews work along a trench to lay pipe and install wood beams to support the opening. ULPA MSD.017.021, Metropolitan Sewer Collection, 1981.03, Special Collections, University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky. digital.library.louisville.edu/cdm/ref/collection/msd/id/5896
