The Brown Collection of Photographs, one of the most important collections held by the Library, are photographs of Wheeling in the 19th and early 20th century.
The photographs were donated to Ohio County Public Library in 1950 by W.C. Brown, one of the city's first photographers. The pictures were taken by Brown and his father, according to an article in the News-Register. They had been recently restored by George Kossuth.
Left: Picture of W.C. Brown donating the collection
These historic photos have been scanned to preserve as much of the artistic quality and style of the original. If you would like to obtain an even higher resolution copy of a photo from this collection than is available on our website, please make a request through the OCPL contact form.
The indexes of the Brown Photographs are organized by the dates on each picture. The dates may not reflect the actual date the photograph was taken, but it is relative to the subject. In many cases, they are are simply the date a building was started.
Many of the photographs from this collection are on display at the library on a rotating basis both in the Wheeling Room and in our Archival display case at the back library entrance. The entire physical collection is available for viewing by appointment only.
We hope you enjoy this spectacular collection of images.