Frank W. Meyer Photograph Collection

Collection

Identifier: Photo 2110

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Frank W. Meyer Photograph Collection spans two decades from the early 1950s to the late 1960s; including photos of Fargo winters and summers, parades, floods, tornado pictures, and even a downtown fire. The collection consists of 51 images, all slides or digital scans from the original slides. These photographs were acquired by the Institute from Frank’s son Raymond and have been organized into two series: Digital Scans and Slides. The Digital Scans Series consists of ten digital scans made by the Institute staff in 2006 from original slides. The images have been organized into two files. The first file contains images of the Fargo Tornado of 1957. Each image helps to document the tornado, showing the devastation it caused to downtown homes with a particular emphasis on the homes and property of the Meyer family. The second file contains just two images, both of which show flooding in the Fargo area. The Slides Series is the more voluminous of the two. It contains thirty-nine slides that are placed into a single file. These slides are organized into eight topics within the series. These topics are as follows: Aerials, View from VA Hospital, Swimming pool scenes, Jack Frost Parade, Winter of 1952, Veterans of Foreign Wars fire, Sandbagging at the Veterans Hospital, and Collapse of Fargo Grain Terminal Elevator. The most comprehensive topical group is the Aerial slides. These images were taken from inside an airplane and almost all of them document the flood of 1969, one of the most devastating floods to hit the Fargo-Moorhead area at the time. The Winter of 1952 photographs show some of the high snow drifts and even a primitive snow blowing machine. Then there are some images of people sandbagging at the Veterans Hospital to protect against flooding. Two files show two other major events that took place within the city of Fargo, the fire at the VFW club and the Collapse of the Fargo Grain Terminal Elevator. The elevator was built by Joseph Eichinger and located just southwest of the intersection of Main Ave. and I-29. The Photograph Series is arranged topically. The Raymond Wilkinson file contains two photos of Frank Meyer’s father-in-law dressed in his street railroad uniform. The race car files, shows several images of a race car on Broadway, surrounded by people, and another image of a race car driving around the race track at the Fargo Fairgrounds. There are two nice photos of men on motorcycles. The men are identified as Bjarnie Lee, and Harry Johnson. There are 18 snapshot photographs of building damage from the 1957 Fargo Tornado. Three photographs of the flooded Red River taken from the Veterans Hospital in 1952 are in another folder, and the last folder contains a photo of a Coca-Cola sign at the Roberts Street Café.

Dates

1952-1969

Creator

Meyer, Frank W., 1911-1978. (Person)

Access

The collection is open under the rules and regulations of the Institute.

Copyrights

Copyrights to this collection is held by the Institute for Regional Studies.

Biography

Frank Meyer was born Nov. 10, 1911 at St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended school and graduated from Central High School in Fargo before enrolling at North Dakota Agricultural College. He married Inez Wilkinson in Fargo on October 20, 1934 and they made their home at 1004 14th Street North, Fargo. He worked for thirty years at the Veterans Hospital in Fargo and took photos of some major events that took place within the city in his spare time.