The North Dakota Cities and Towns Postcard Collection represents the largest collecting program by Dr. Ronald Olin, spanning many years of seeking out images and postmarks from all North Dakota cities and towns. While his primary interest was postal history and thus collecting postcards for the postmarks, this collection is much broader in scope and thus its research value. The collection documents largely the built environment of many of the towns, yet does include social scenes and landscapes. The time period covered is from circa 1906 into the 1920s, although there are images that go into the 1930s through 1950s.