Collection

Wiggins photographs

• 1895-1940 (Creation)

Collection consists of 326 black-and-white photographic prints, 335 nitrate negatives, and 123 glass plate negatives primarily taken around the state of Oregon from approximately 1913 to 1940. Many of the prints in the collection correspond to nitrate negatives and they are believed to have been taken by Donegan Reeder Wiggins and his family during travels around the state, particularly the Oregon coast and central Willamette Valley area around Salem. Several of the prints and negatives have captions believed to be written by the original photographer. The subjects depicted in the photographs from the Oregon coast include vacation cottages and towns, coastal rocks and landscapes, people on beaches, shipwrecks, and bridges on Highway 101. Photographs taken in the central Willamette Valley region depict acquaintances and members of the Wiggins family, agricultural landscapes, abandoned homesteads, and interior and exterior views of the Salem Heights Grocery, which was owned by the Wiggins family. The collection also includes family portraits that date from approximately 1895 to 1940.

The connection of the glass plate negatives to the rest of the collection is unclear. 114 of the glass plate negatives in the collection were taken by staff photographers for the Oregon Journal, some of which are directly attributed to Le Roy Norr. Many of the photographs correspond with news articles that were published in the Journal between approximately 1910 and 1925. Subjects depicted in these photographs include Prohibition-era police raids, politicians, medical practitioners, food safety officers, boxers and wrestlers, and other several portraits of unidentified people. There are also 9 glass plate negatives that depict Washington Park and the construction of the Lewis and Clark Exposition. These photographs were taken in approximately 1904 or 1905 and are not believed to be associated with the Oregon Journal negatives.

Biographical Note:
Donegan Reeder Wiggins was born in Dodge City, Kansas, on February 10, 1888. His parents were Henry Gilbert Wiggins (1859-1932) and Nancy Elizabeth (Lizzy) Donegan Wiggins (1859-1920). In 1913, the Wiggins family moved to Salem, Oregon. There, Wiggins and his father operated the Salem Heights Grocery. In 1927, Wiggins went to work for the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. Wiggins was also a firearms and ballistics expert. During World War I, he served as an armorer with a machine gun battalion of the U.S. Army. After the war, he performed as a trick shooter, assisted the Oregon State Police with servicing firearms, and testified in court cases as a ballistics expert. Wiggins also worked as a firearms consultant and editor for Adventure Magazine for 30 years. He regularly wrote short stories, poetry, and nonfiction articles on firearms, ballistics, famous gunfights, and the history of the American West for Adventure Magazine and several other publications.

Processing Information:
The connection between the prints and nitrate negatives taken by Donegan Reeder Wiggins and the glass plate negatives in this collection is not clearly documented in the Oregon Historical Society research library's collection records. However, the prints and the glass negatives had been processed as a single collection by 1977. In 2023, the collection was reprocessed, and description was expanded and revised to conform to current standard.

• Citation: Wiggins photographs, Org. Lot 19, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.