Enthusiastic Frank Rollins Fans

Find Mementos In His Archives

COOPERSTOWN – Hundreds of Cooperstonians are taking trips down memory lane at this hour, looking through thousands of the remaining images from Frank Rollins photo archives and buying those memories for 25 cents apiece.

Rollins, who was hired as a Cooperstown school teacher in the late 1950s, and for the next half-century took tens of thousands of photos – from street scenes, to school plays, to formal graduation portraits, to sporting events.  Before his passed away last December, he had collaborated with NYSHA to ensure the photos of most historic significance were archived.

But when county Treasurer Dan Crowell was named executor of the estate, he found so much more.  Figuring that people depicted in the images and their family members would find those images of most value, he arrived with the Cooperstown Art Association to sort them and make them available to the public.

The doors opened at the second-floor ballroom at 22 Main at 11, and the space was immediately filled with people who, yes, found images of themselves and their children.   The event goes on until 4 p.m. today, and again Sunday, 1-4 p.m.