Aerial Photography at the National Archives at Chicago, Illinois
Contact Information for NARA at Chicago
Record Group 95: Historic Photographs, ca. 1880 - ca. 1970 (95-GP)
This series consists of photographs taken under the supervision of the Eastern Region of the Forest Service and the individual national forests in the region by contract photographers and staff to document activities with the region and individual forests. Coverage includes imagery from most of the national forests in the Eastern Region. The national forests of the region represented are: Allegeheny, Pennsylvania; Chequamegon-Nicolet, Wisconsin; Chippewa, Minnesota; Green Mountain, Vermont; Hiwatha, Michigan; Hoosier, Indiana; Huron-Manistee, Michigan; Mark Twain, Missouri; Monongahela, West Virginia; Ottawa, Michigan; Shawnee, Illinois; Superior, Minnesota; Wayne, Ohio; and White Mountain, New Hampshire and Maine. There are also images for the Clark National Forest, Missouri, which was administratively merged into the Mark Twain National Forest on February 16, 1973. Two units now a part of the Eastern Region, the Finger Lakes National Forest, New York, and the Midewin National tallgrass Prairie, Illinois, were created after the photographic series was assembled. The diversity of subjects in this series reflects the changes in practices within the Eastern Region and its individual forests throughout decades of operation. Subjects documented in the series include forest management, wildlife management, watershed management, fire control, recreation, and the logging industry. The finding aid for the series is available at NARA at Chicago. This series is partially digitized.
Record Group 114: Flat Creek Watershed Project Case Files, 1953 - 1959
This series consists primarily of records relating to work plans and contracts for the Flat Creek Watershed in Pike and Dubois Counties, Indiana. Work plan files consist of correspondence, memoranda, evaluation and completion reports, tables and other compiled cost information, maps, and photographs. Contract files consist of correspondence, memoranda, estimates, abstracts of bids, plans of operation, progress reports, drawings, graphs, and weekly payrolls. Also included among the project files are correspondence, field notes, soil data, blueprints, overlays, some printed matter, aerial photographs, and rating curve calculations.
Record Group 114: General Correspondence, 1936 - 1938
This series consists of correspondence of the Prairie Creek Demonstration Project office concerning Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) work, cooperative agreements, equipment and supplies, transportation, business and fiscal matters, extension services, drafting, meetings and conferences, aerial photography, personnel and labor, information and education, progress reports, and legislation.
Record Group 326: Zero Gradient Synchrotron Dedication Photographs, 12/4/1963
This album contains photographs compiled after the completion and dedication of Argonne National Laboratory's proton particle accelerator, the Zero Gradient Synchrotron (ZGS), on December 4, 1963. The photographs depict aerial views of the site of the ZGS complex in 1958 before construction; the groundbreaking ceremony on June 27, 1959; the excavation and construction work undertaken from 1959 through 1963; the delivery of accelerator equipment and components by railroad flatcar on a specially constructed siding; and the completion of the particle accelerator and the ZGS complex in 1963. Photographs also depict the High Energy Physics Building and the internal structures and equipment of the particle accelerator; scientists from Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago; workers who made components of the accelerator, including an African-American woman dubbed an "atomic seamstress" for her work fabricating sections of the ZGS vacuum chamber; and participants in tour groups, including a group of Soviet high-energy physicists, who visited in 1960. The finding aid for the series is available at NARA at Chicago.