1914 Toppenish Roundup and Rodeo Photographs
The items in this collection are housed in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections in the Terrell Library.
View the guide to PC 93: H.E. Maris' Toppenish Roundup and Rodeo Photographs, 1914.
The Collection
There are approximately 150 images in the 1914 Toppenish Roundup and Rodeo Photograph Collection, and 80 of those images are currently presented here in this digital collection. These images document the audience, participants, and events from the Toppenish Roundup and Rodeo which took place in Toppenish, Yakima County, Washington across September 3, 4, 5, and 6 in 1914. The images in this collection explore the diversity of life in central Washington state in the early part of the twentieth-century, with participants and audience members traveling from various parts of the Western United States and Pacific Northwest for the annual event.
Attendance over the four-day event exceeded 10,000 people, with over 200 local Native Americans taking part and temporarily staying in an Indian village erected at the site. Numbering among the many participants at the Roundup and Rodeo were the entertainer Sean Nadrean the Yiddish Clown and his mule Jarbo. A few of the many events included the cowboy half-mile race and stage coach race, fancy-riding, roping, and bucking contests, and an Indian dance and ceremony. The final day of the Roundup and Rodeo concluded with a parade through the streets of the city of Toppenish, complete with exotic animals such as elephants, lions, and zebras.
Little is known about the photographer, Harry Eston Maris. His photographic studio was located at 320 W 1st Ave in Toppenish; Mr. Maris died in Toppenish in 1918 at age 36.
Searching the Collection
Entering search terms in the "Search The Collection" box located at the top of the page will search across all of the database fields. A small but select topic list of "Predefined Searches" is provided below in a drop-down box. Choose a topic from the options and click on the search button to see the results. The "Browse This Collection" link will display all items in an alphabetical order. Search results are displayed as a series of thumbnail images that may be browsed, both forward and backward. To view an item description, double click on the thumbnail or the textual link. Any highlighted text in the description below each full-size image is searchable; just click. Options to return to the Collection Home or the WSU Digital Collections are provided along the top banner.
Creating the Database
Graduate History student Nathan Sowry selected and scanned photographic images from original prints and negatives as 600 dpi TIFF files on an Epson Expression 10000XL scanner, added 100 dpi JPEG versions of the images to the CONTENTdm database, and created the descriptive metadata for the images. Mark O'English, University Archivist and Photographs Curator, supervised the project and designed the metadata schemas. Alex Merrill provided technical support for CONTENTdm. Nathan Sowry and Mark O'English created this page; Jeff Kuure designed the page's banner.