A few weeks ago I received an intriguing message here at the Tacomahistory.live inbox. Old photographs separated from their story have always been one of those intolerable mysteries for me as a historian and a researcher. The message I opened on October 15th from Allan Rustad was how it all started…like this

Greetings, I am presently 84 year old, a Tacoma native. A few years ago I found in my father’s photo collection a large set of 3×4 black & white negatives that look like western movie still shots. There are shots of a group of men in cowboy costumes, a gathered around a campfire, another group of cowboys near a Northern Pacific freight boxcar., other shots of men on horseback. Dad had mentioned years ago of being an extra in a western called “The Yellow Kid”. It was filmed in the vicinity of Fort Lewis. A(Rusty) Rustad, moved with his parents, Pete and Ann Rustad from their farm in Alberta, Canada in 1924, at about the age of18. He loved horses and later joined the National Guard field artillery, as they were still using horses to move field guns and supplies. I would like to send a few sample prints of these old negatives, with hope of finding them a home in a Tacoma history collection.

In the following weeks, Allan and I spoke about the negatives, his father Rusty (Eustice A Rustad b. 1907), his life in Tacoma in the 1920’s and the conversations he had with Rusty about a silent western movie. I knew Tacoma was abuzz with movie making in the late 1920’s mainly because of Weaver Studios and its massive soundstage and workforce at Titlow Beach. The discovery of a thought-to-be-lost 1926 Weaver Studios film, The Eyes of the Totem, was a cultural sensation in Tacoma when it was restored and shown in 2015. And now the lightening of movie making magic might be striking again. Allan sent me the negatives and with the help of colleague and film maker Mick Flaaen we unpacked the cigar box to see what was there.

The collection included about 75 4×5 cellulose acetate black & white negatives and a few 4×5 b&w glass plate negatives which immediately suggested that a professional camera was used and the film type matched the 1920’s. The negatives were not sleeved or separated but they were wrapped carefully and showed no water damage or emulsion deterioration. We scanned a selection of the negatives at 600 dpi (Epson Perfection V750 Pro) to sample the image quality and get a sense of the subject matter.

Here are the first images we saw of Rusty’s Western…

One of the first thing we noticed was the landscape and the feeling that the location was not the prairie land at Camp Lewis. With some help from master researcher Dave Lisiecki we identified the institutional brick building in one of the photos as the Wyoming Territorial prison in Laramie. Just about the time we were thinking Tacoma might not be connected with the film we learned that there was a movie making land rush in Wyoming during the late 1920’s. The big name western movie star at the center of it was Tim McCoy and the director most noted was none other than W.C. Van Dyke.

It was Van Dyke who directed two of the Weaver Studios films including the Eyes of the Totem. But was he somehow involved in Rusty’s western? And who are these actors in western costumes on horseback with six shooters and saddleware. Maybe there are clues hidden in the many photos still to come. Watch for the next batch of scans and help us by sharing the images and any ideas you may have about the content…