In 1889, Thomas Nathan Barnard and his wife moved to Wallace, Idaho to open a photo studio. Barnard had previously owned photo studios in Murray and Wardner to take advantage of the mining frenzy in the area. Shortly after, in 1890, the studio was destroyed in a fire with only a small amount of his negatives surviving. Most of the photographs taken in the early years included landscapes, placer workings, townscapes, and panoramic views of Wallace and Murray Idaho, taken on 5 x 7 and 8 x 10 dry-plate negatives. Barnard made most of his living from his landscape photographs, which were for sale to the general public and commissioned portraits.

Barnard also had interests in mining and politics, and soon needed help running the studio. In 1898, Nellie Jane Stockbridge left her home in central Illinois to accept Thomas Barnard's offer of employment in his Wallace, Idaho photo studio. Stockbridge was a dedicated photographer and businesswoman. In 1907, she purchased a quarter share of the business and eventually assumed full ownership when Barnard became the mayor of Wallace. Barnard passed away in 1916.

Over the next few decades, working often to exhaustion, Stockbridge photographed the people and places of one of the richest mining areas of the world, the Coeur d'Alene Mining District. While portrait photography was the mainstay of her studio, Stockbridge skillfully photographed the area's mining industries, both above ground and below, creating a visual record of historical significance to Idaho and beyond. Employing the help from local students and studio employees, Stockbridge and team would lug her heavy camera equipment out into the field, traveling down into the mines to document the miners and their progress, or climbing the steep hillsides surrounding the valley in order to get panoramic shots of the buildings and towns. Nellie Stockbridge died on May 22, 1965. Influential Wallace businessman Richard Magnuson suggested to Stockbridge a few years before her death to donate the collection to the University of Idaho, and in 1965 Stockbridge's niece and apparent heir, Ruth Ray, followed suit, arranging for the transfer with the help of Magnuson and Henry Day, another influential Wallace businessman.