This collection of 127 photographs taken by Mr. Collins spans a variety of subjects, although oil seems to be a central topic, with oil companies, machinery, people, disasters, and fair displays, as well as a number of oil-related trucks and businesses of various types in the collection.
The photographs are black and white, undated, although they all must date from 1942 to 1952, and they are mostly unidentified. There is an interesting photograph in the People (Folder 1) of three WWII GIs on camels in Egypt. The GIs are posing in front of what may be the Great Sphinx and Pyramid at Giza. Also there is one photograph each of Sloan and Warriner halls at Central Michigan University in the Building folder. There is a photograph of Fancher Elementary School students in the People (Folder 2), and in the People (Folder 1), there is one photograph each of a large first communion group, a large Christmas party of children, a cowboy band, and a (high school?) football team. The donor believed all the photographs were of Mount Pleasant subjects. Some of the businesses identified in the Businesses and Trucks and People folders include: Roy D. Hafer Oil Company, Roscoe E. Becket Hauling Contractors, Art Savage [gas truck], and Mt. Pleasant Cementing and Mudding.
Biography:
Eugene F. Collins was born in 1873 on a Hillsdale Country, Michigan, farm near North Adams Street. In 1894, he came to Mount Pleasant, Michigan, as assistant to a photographer named R.W. Williams. Collins opened his own studio in 1902 on South Main Street. He purchased another studio on the corner of Washington and Broadway in 1941, which was later destroyed in a fire. All of his negatives were destroyed in the fire. His final studio was at 501 South Mission, and it was from here that he worked until his retirement in 1948. Aside from his photography business, Collins served as city treasurer for three terms and as a member of the first City Planning Commission. He was a member of Elks and Knights of Pythias, and a lifetime member of the Marquette Fishing Club, the Michigan Photographer’s Society, and the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Collins died on December 18, 1952. He was survived by his wife, Virgiline Doughty, and one son, Philip. (This information is from the collection.)
