Photo #1 - Diane Butler with the “Album Collection” she recently completed digitizing  at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River:   198 albums containing 21,000 photographs.

 

Photo #2 - A photograph from the extensive New Studio Collection at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum, taken in 1921: the entrance of the Grand Theater in Rock Springs.

 

Photo #3 - The New Studio on what is now South Main Street, circa 1950. It remains open for business at the same location to this day.

 

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - July 19, 2024)     Diane Butler, a volunteer at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum, recently reached a major milestone in her work for the museum. She has been engaged in digitizing historic photographs in the museum’s archives and has now completed digitization of the “Album Collection;” 21,000 photographs in 198 three-ring binder albums.

“Diane isn’t missing a beat,” said Executive Director Dave Mead. “She has already begun her next project - digitizing the museum’s New Studio Collection, some 100,000 negatives and glass photographic plates.”

The New Studio, believed to be the oldest still-operating business in Rock Springs, opened in 1919 under the ownership of Charles August. Charles ran the business until his retirement in 1945, when he turned it over to his sons, Mike and Anthony. The brothers operated the Studio until 1976, when it was purchased by a staff member, Oliver "Bud" Tebedo. Bud ran things until 1994, when he sold the operation to sisters Diane Butler and Susan Knezovich. In 2000 Susan sold her share to Diane. Diane began working at the Studio at age 17 and retired in 2019, passing the torch to R.J. Pieper and Angela Thatcher, the current owners.

The museum acquired the extensive New Studio Collection of negatives and glass plates in 2015. “The New Studio Collection represents a timeline of over a century of Sweetwater County history,” Mead said. “And there could not be a more suitable or better qualified person than Diane to take on digitizing it.”