Joseph Earl Broyles, 1905-1979, was a mechanical foreman for the Union Pacific Railroad, working out of Moscow, Idaho. He was a third generation rail worker, as his father, James Broyles, had been an OWRN railroad engineer himself, apparently working out of Colfax, WA, and his grandfather had worked for the railroads as well.
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (O&N) began in 1896 as a consolidation of several smaller railways. It was purchased by the Union Pacific in 1898 and ran for them as a subsidiary, the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company (OWRN). It was formally absorbed into the Union Pacific in 1936.
Approximately 330 black and white photographs documenting railroad life in the inland northwest. The bulk of the collections covers the 1890s to the 1920s. Each photograph comes with a one paragraph description about its significance to the region's rail history.
The materials appear to be in their original order, with page numbers penciled in at the upper right to retain that order. However, as of May, 2017 there are no pages 1, 3, 9, 45, 47, or 49, and it is unclear if those pages were blank or have been lost. The photographs originally came in three binders but no information was retained on where each binder began and ended. The materials are retained in four folders for ease of storage, but that foldering is solely for convenience in handling and bears no relation to the original binders.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions may apply.
[Item description] Joseph Earl Broyles Eastern Washington Railroad Photographs, 1880-1954 (PC 47)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
This collection was donated to the Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) by Margaret Whitehall Broyles (wife of Joseph Earl Broyles) of Moscow, ID on August 29, 1980, and retained as MS1980-37.
This collection was processed in December, 1981 by Robert Arnett. Though received as three binders, the materials were unbound and it is no longer possible to determined what was in each binder.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.