Thompson (P. J.) Photograph Collection, 1909-1913

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Summary

Title:
P. J. Thompson photograph collection
Dates:
1909-1913
Abstract:
The collection includes approximately 400 glass plate and film negatives. The majority are 8x10 glass plates, with a few 5x7 glass plates. Some are cracked, lack pieces or have damaged emulsion. The CSRM Library has prepared contact prints for the railroad and logging images. There is also a binder of laminated photocopies of contact prints for selected images. (The whereabouts of these original photographic prints is not known.)
Extent:
4 Linear Feet (13) 1/2 manuscript boxes + (2) shoe box style boxes (negatives) + 1/2 manuscript box of copy prints + 1 binder of laminated photocopies
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], P. J. Thompson Photograph Collection, MS 541, California State Railroad Museum Library & Archives, Sacramento, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection includes approximately 400 glass plate and film negatives. The majority are 8x10 glass plates, with a few 5x7 glass plates. Some are cracked, lack pieces or have damaged emulsion. The CSRM Library has prepared contact prints for the railroad and logging images. There is also a binder of laminated photocopies of contact prints for selected images. (The whereabouts of these original photographic prints is not known.)

The subjects are diverse and includes scenes relating to railroads, town life, logging, icing, and farming. There are also many portraits (some formal, some informal) of people of all ages (from babies to the elderly), from school children to firemen and surveyors.

Biographical / historical:

These images are believed to be the work of Loyalton (Sierra County) photographer P. J. Thompson. Although most images are not dated, a few bear dates between 1909 and 1913. Two negatives are signed "Wheeler", and one is signed "Peterson."

Peter Julian Thompson, known professionally as P.J. Thompson, was born in approximately 1870 on March 21 in a Danish Providence of Germany and immigrated to the United States in approximately 1874 with his sister Anna, mother Margaret and stepfather J.P. Hansen. Thompson's tombstone states he was born in 1879. The family settled in Alameda, California.

In 1910, Thompson married Delia Marie Buckley. After their marriage, P.J. and Delia are moved to Sierra, Loyalton City where he is employed as a photographer. Throughout World War I, the Thompsons were large supporters of the Red Cross, often hosting benefits and fundraisers with proceeds supporting the Red Cross. After the War ended, Thompson offered free photos to returning WWI Veterans of Lassen County.

The Sept. 5, 1919, issue of the Lassen Mail reported that Thompson had purchased the lot on Lassen Street located between the Methodist Church and the alley. Thompson was building a two-story fireproof building. This concrete building would include a first-floor photo studio and living space on the second floor.

In October 1920, Thompson took his own life on a bluff above Susanville. He is buried at the Susanville Cemetery in Susanville in Lassen County, California.

Delia Thompson Grimes was born on February 5, 1863, in Ohio to Royal Buckley and [unknown] Pinney.

After Thompson passed away in 1920, Delia married Rufus Edward Grimes on December 25, 1923, in Susanville. Grimes was a photographer employed with the Thompson Studio in Susanville, California. Grimes was born in 1878 in North Manchester, Indiana and came to Susanville after World War I in 1919. The Lassen Mail newspaper reported on March 13, 1925, that Grimes had taken the largest photograph in Lassen County. The print of the town and the plant at Westwood was 2 feet wide and fifteen feet long. The negative was taken from an elevation of 200 feet on the new smokestack of the power plant. In 1924, Ed and Delia Grimes installed a new Kodak finishing plant in the basement of the Thompson Studio.

On November 27, 1925, Grimes died suddenly of heart failure. Grimes is buried at the Lassen Cemetery in Susanville in Lassen County, California.

By 1932, Delia Grimes was living at 4388 33rd Ave in San Francisco after leaving Lassen, California. She succumbed to a heart failure on November 26, 1942. According to newspaper articles, her cremains were interned in Susanville, California.

Acquisition information:
Gift of San Joaquin Delta College, Goleman Library, 2001
Custodial history:

The collection was discovered in the Old Scribner House by Ed. G. White of Loyalton in the 1960s. He gave the negatives to Don Webber of Rio Vista who passed them on to San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton. San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton donated the collection to the California State Railroad Museum Library and Archives in 2001.

Processing information:

A preliminary inventory was received with the collection. The CSRM Library re-inventoried the negatives, using the negative numbers appearing on the original inventory, and assigned new numbers (beginning with 500) to facilitate identification.

Arrangement:

The glass plate negatives are filed in two sequences:

(1) numerically by the Thompson negative number

(2) by CSRM negative numbers with a suffix "F."

Physical location:
Statewide Museum Collections Center
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Library Archives staff
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2026-05-22 17:45:44 +0000 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research by appointment. Contact Library Staff

Terms of access:

Copyright has not been assigned to the California State Railroad Museum. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the CSRM Library & Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the CSRM as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], P. J. Thompson Photograph Collection, MS 541, California State Railroad Museum Library & Archives, Sacramento, California.

Location of this collection:
111 I Street
Sacramento, CA 95814, US
Contact:
(916) 323-8073
Library.CSRM@parks.ca.gov
Website