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Charles Kelly photograph collection, 1910-1970. (P0003). Utah State University. Special Collections & Archives Department.
The collection was transferred to Nelson Wadsworth, professor emeritus of journalism, by the Kelly estate. Wadsworth then gave them to USU Special Collections. The Charles Kelly manuscript collection can be found at the University of Utah Marriot Library (MS 0100), and the Kelly papers are at the Utah State Historical Society (Manuscript Collection B-114).
Register completed by Todd Welker, April 2001.
Charles Kelly was born February 3, 1889, in a roaring lumber camp in Cedar Springs, Michigan. As a boy of seven he learned to set type in a small print shop which his father used to turn out religious tracts. He attended college in Indiana for a short time, but when money ran out he began wandering as a tramp printer in the West and Far West. He served in the army during World War I, during which time he met and corresponded with Harriette Greener. In February 1919, he and Harriette married and settled in Utah. For the next twenty years Kelly continued to earn his living as a linotype operator and printer, eventually becoming a partner in the Western Printing Company. In the meantime, he became interesting in local history, as a result of a trip to the Great Salt Lake Desert in 1929. Although he continued in the printing business, his passion was to research and write about the stories of the old West. He was particularly interested in the Utah-Arizona-Nevada region. His publications included
Kelly was extremely bold in many aspects of his life- in outdoor adventures, in attitude, and in politics. He took the first automobile across the Salt Lake Desert on the Donner trail, and he floated Glen Canyon several times in the years when it was not generally known. As the first custodian of Capitol Reef National Monument, he compiled an immense body of interpretive information. Extremely anti-religious, he lived squarely in the middle of Mormon country and dared the Mormons to do something about it. He was also one of the founding fathers of the Utah Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
For more information about Kelly see, A. Russel Mortensen, "In Memoriam,"
This collection organized by geographic place and/or by format.
The Charles Kelly collection consists of 574 photographs and a few accompanying negatives. The photographs, taken and collected by Kelly, consist primarily of landscapes of national parks and monuments in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. Also included are a number of family snapshots. Unfortunately, the bulk of the photographs are unidentified. Because different parts of the collection were discovered at different times, the arrangement may seem a bit disjointed. An organizational attempt of some kind has nonetheless been made as similar print types were assembled and the prints were put into a loose chronological arrangement. The bulk of the items are silver gelatin developing-out-paper snaps. Most of the negatives were nitrate, duplicated onto dry diazo film.
Charles Kelly manuscript collection, University of Utah Marriot Library (MS 0100)
Kelly papers, Utah State Historical Society (Manuscript Collection B-114).
Where there is no state indicated for a place name, that place is in Utah. The folder level descriptions do not attempt to mention everything in the folder, but items thought to be of particular interest.
Photos of sheep, deer, and a camp scene with automobile.
Includes photo of the St. Ignacio Mission church and of a Montana Indian village.
Includes some accompanying negatives. Camp scences, R. See Craig, and fossil hunting.
Includes photos of Kelly in army uniform.
Crater Lake [Oregon]; Lake Tahoe [Nevada]; Redwood National Park [California]; and San Francisco Bay [California].
Children riding horseback; buffalo; John Kelly and Don Strain working in a printing shop.
Several hand-tinted. Death Valley [California]; a Desert Tortoise; Mesa Verde National Park [Colorado].
The Greener Family; artist Gordon Ertz (Chicago); sculptor Jack Phillips; Julia Stack; Charles and Henrietta Kelly (on in City Creek Canyon, Salt Lake City); U.S. Army groups in Paris.
Includes photo of (?) Huber, Henrietta Kelly, and Viola Bridgood in front of the Stationery Press, Salt Lake City; the Kelly family in front of the Utah State Capitol; Fred and Elsie Albers with the Kellys and their first Model A Ford on the Salt Lake Flats.
Ice caves near Shoshone [Idaho]; Blue Lakes and Twin Falls areas [Idaho]; Hoffman Briney standing at the grave of Dr. King Robinson in Salt Lake City; Mirror Lake.
Includes an excursion on the Donner Trail.
Includes artist Bill Flemming working on a Coca-Cola sign; Capitol Reef; Floral Ranch.
Some accompanying negatives. Cathedral Valley; Capitol Reef National Monument; home in Fruita.
Capitol Reef National Monument, etc.
Bryce Canyon National Park; Virginia City [Nevada].
Includes Fred Greener on the summit of Starved Rock State Park [Illinois].
Some accompanying negatives.
Includes view of the visitor center at Zion National Park.
A highly miscellaneous box of photographs, some identified as to place. They were arranged loosely by size and type of print, with a view to bring at least general time periods together. Much southwestern scenery, family, friends, etc..
Includes photo of Kelly as a Boy Scouts leader.
Some negatives included. Southwestern scenery, including Indian ruins; photos taken in Glacier National Park [Montana], and other probably taken in Montana when Kelly lived there just before entering the Army. Some of the shots in this folder seem to aim for a painterly look.
Many probably taken in Montana; some probably the Sun River near Great Falls, as one print is positively identified as such in folder 7.
Many probably taken in Montana.
Scenery, including Sun River near Great Falls.
Scenery.
Scenery; portraits; Kelly posed with a four-piece band.
Scenery; portraits, including one of western artist Charles M. Russell working on a canvas in his studio (Kelly took lessons from him in Montana).
Indian ruins; Utah scenery including Mt. Timpanogas, mine at Lake Solitude, and the Uintahs.
Interiors, Timpanogas cave [?]; Salt Lake City scenes including Brigham Young's Beehive House, view south/southwest over the city from the Capitol, and a view south from the mouth of Parley's Canyon.
Includes photos of Kelly as a ranger at Capitol Reef National Monument.
Mainly photographs of Kelly, one standing before one of his paintings.
Subjects include Mt. Rushmore, pictographs, and Capitol Reef National Monument.
Includes Kelly on Doc Inglesby's porch, camping at Ouray, Utah, and with Harriette and others at Capital Reef.
Besides the negatives listed below, the box contains unnumbered and uncategorized negatives for which prints do not yet exist