By Mindy Ragan Wood
Staff Writer
KINGFISHER – Train enthusiasts and lovers of history have the chance to see a popular traveling exhibit next month at the Chisholm Trail Museum and A. J. Seay Mansion in Kingfisher.
The late Preston George’s train photographs from the 1930s and 1940s form the exhibit, “Smoke Over Oklahoma: The Railroad Photographs of Preston George.”
George photographed trains in his spare time while working as a civil engineer in Colorado and Oklahoma.
Born in 1906 in Indian Territory, George’s interest in trains began at an early age but did not culminate into a full-fledged pastime until the 1930s when he was quoted saying, “I ran across a copy of Railroad Stories, later renamed Railroad Magazine, and saw the many photos of locomotives and trains. This started me on a new hobby…Soon, I was snapping still pictures of locomotives with a cheap Kodak camera and trading them far and wide with other fans.”
Critics say the images are surprisingly clear for the quality of camera he began using. George later acquired a more sophisticated camera, the Graphlex which was common among sports photographers.
The exhibit debuted in April 2017 at the Oklahoma History Center (OHC) in Oklahoma City. The 25 images displayed feature a number of railroad lines that passed through Oklahoma, such as the Katy and the Frisco, and the heavier duty locomotives of the Kansas City Southern and the Santa Fe lines. The exhibit featured images of various metro lines and trolleys.
The collection remained popular since its debut. OHC Director of Exhibits Lori Oden said it has been in demand ever since.
“They’re beautiful images and people have loved it,” she said. “We did the exhibit two years ago and we had so many requests for it that it became one of our traveling exhibits. It’s been one of our most rented exhibits. It’s scheduled to go to Nebraska this year.”
George’s family donated negatives of his work to the OHC where researcher and historian, Augustus J. Veenendaal Jr. discovered them. He traveled from Netherlands when the exhibit was first shown which coincided with the release of his book titled after the exhibit’s name in 2017.
Veenedaal, a Dutch historian and author, worked with the Oklahoma Historical Society Executive Director Bob Blackburn. Blackburn knew George through his son-in-law, Jim Argo, who was a photographer and photo editor for the Oklahoman until 2004 when he retired.
Oden said it is not unusual to have researchers from outside the United States visit the museum for their work.
“We get a lot of people from out of the country to come here and study. Much of it is for our American Indian collection,” she said.
The exhibit will be available Feb. 19 through May 31 at the Chisholm Trail Museum at 605 Zellers Avenue, Kingfisher.
