While walking the Cassville Greenway Trail near the ball fields one evening a few weeks ago, I noticed local photographer and Barry County Museum board member Chuck Nickle out taking photos of the kids in their baseball uniforms.

Seeing Chuck and being near Flat Creek across from 7th Street, I remembered a photograph by R.E. Hinchey of the Cassville mill from 1910 close to that location. Robert Emmett Hinchey was an Aurora area photographer who took several photographs of the Cassville vicinity around 1910 including scenes of Water Street (now known as 7th Street), Bayless House, Charles Ray residence, McMurtry Spring, and the Cassville Pythagoras Lodge 383.

Additionally, he captured a great image of the Jenkins bridge opening on May 21, 1910. Although his time in the Cassville area was short, he provided important windows to the past for the area.

Before the steady photographic services of the Fields’ family arrived in Cassville in the 1930s, several photographs made their way through the area. Quite a few photographs by J.W. Baker have made their way into the Barry County Museum. John William Baker was from Carthage and set up shop in Cassville around 1894. He married Ova Bates of Exeter that same year, but they later divorced.

By the 1900 census, Baker was located in Benton County, Ark., and a 1902 newspaper clipping finds him back in Jasper County, Mo. So, this gives us a timeline of Baker photographs in Cassville between 1894 and 1899.

One of his photographs was of the Exeter Academy in the 1890s, and another was of the Cassville Band in 1895. From about 1898 to 1899, photographer Harry L. Stewart relocated from Rogers, Ark., to Cassville. An item from an 1899 paper stated, “Harry L. Stewart has opened an Art Studio over Scott’s restaurant and in addition to making photographs also enlarges in crayon, pastel, water color or India ink.”

Another photographer who worked briefly in Cassville between 1902-1907 was A.J.T. Joslin, or Amon James Tefft Joslin. He was born in New York in 1839 and had studios in Illinois, Indian, Texas and California, where he died in 1913.

About the time A.J.T. Joslin left Cassville, Ohio native Ira P. Merrill arrived in the area, operating a photo gallery at Seligman first, and later relocating to Cassville. He was in the area in the 1920s, but he didn’t seem to mark his work as other photographers usually did, so it’s difficult to get a sense of his photos. Merril eventually died at the County Farm in 1931 and was buried in Kansas.

From about 1900 into the mid-1930s Jack Hisey had a photography shop in Cassville. John Willicent Hisey was born Feb. 8, 1871, and died at Monett on April 12, 1937. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Marlett Sanders ran Sanders Studio in Cassville. Sanders attended Oak Ridge rural school and was a 1945 graduate of Cassville High School. He later moved to Springfield and then to Stillwater, Oklahoma where he managed a J.C. Penney store.

Other early Barry County photographers included the traveling photographer Harry D. McMahan, who had a farm in the Shoal Creek area of Barry County in 1900, and his brother-in-law, James Harvey Swanson, who had a photography studio in Exeter in 1901 after relocating from Granby.

However, Swanson stay was short as a 1902 newspaper article states “J.H. Swanson, the Exeter photographer who run amuck of the law on the charge of selling whisky illegally, has purchased a half interest in a gallery at Springdale, Ark.” Eventually, both McMahan and Swanson retired to Polk County, Mo.

W.T. Sallee was also a photographer in the Exeter area, but most of his photos seem to be of his family members, the Talberts and Sallees. Watler Sallee was also a farmer and deputy. He died in 1940 and is buried at Concord Cemetery.

Monett also had numerous photographers, including Alonzo Jenks, Will F Simes, R.D. Lenhard, Carl F. Bryner, E.A. Rumbaugh, Ed Shideler and Sinclair Rogers. Additionally, pioneer aviator and Monett druggist Logan McKee also captured many early views of Monett from around 1908.

S.J. Chafin came to Monett from Oklahoma in 1912 and had a studio on Broadway until the 1920s. I wonder if Sam Chafin’s patrons knew that he had served two years in a Wisconsin prison for the crime of adultery in 1898. Probably not.

In the 1990s into the 2000s, the late Connie Thompson also had a studio in Cassville and later Monett. Several of her negatives are located at the Barry County Museum, as well as the Fields’ Photo Archives, the negatives of Ma and Pa Fields and their son Max.

Although photography has transformed in this digital age, the urge to preserve the moment in an ever-changing world remains constant. I’m thankful for those photographers who bottled time and those collectors who saved the images from time’s destructive nature.

In doing so they have enabled us to remember the flashes of yesterday with a bit more clarity.

Jeremiah Buntin is a historian at the Barry County Museum. He may be reached at jbuntin@barrycomuseum.org.