Thanks to a partnership between the City of Carmel and the Carmel Clay Historical Society (CCHS), hundreds of historic photos have been scanned into the historic archive and are now available to the public through the Historical Society’s website. There is no cost to view the images, but there is a nominal fee for prints.
This photo is of the Carmel City Council when Jane Reiman was Mayor. (Front row, from left) Dorothy J. Hancock, Mayor Jane Reiman, and Frank Fleming. (Back row, from left) Jim Miller, Jim Garretson, Sue McMullen, Robert Badger, Minnie Doane, and Ted Johnson. (Photo provided by Carmel Clay Historical Society)
The photos had previously been stored at City Hall, where it was difficult to provide access to the public or researchers interested in viewing the images. As of today, more than 1,200 images have been scanned and made available.
“It is important to preserve our history as a city and make these images available to the public,” said Nancy Heck, Director of the Community Relations and Economic Development department. “This first batch of photos were sitting in boxes and folders in City Hall, and it was important to get them scanned so they can be preserved.”
The project is ongoing and will eventually include electronic images that are currently stored on the city’s servers. Providing digital photo files to the Historical Society will not only benefit the community but will also lessen the load that is carried on city servers for some of the older photos that are not accessed routinely for current city projects and can be stored elsewhere.
All citizens of Carmel may access the collections for free online and request both digital and physical copies of images for a nominal fee. Members of CCHS and students in Carmel get free copies of CCHS collections materials. Research requests can be made to Emily Hanawalt, Collections Manager and City Archivist, at ehanawalt@carmelclayhistory.org.
To access the archive:
- Visit the Historical Society archive website at carmelclayhistory.catalogaccess.com.
- Click on the Advanced Search tab at the top of the screen.
- Click the search bar under Collections on the left side of the screen.
- Search for the term city archive.