Snapshots may provide clues to photographer’s descendants
There’s no mystery about who took this week’s Mystery Photos. It was Dan Harbaugh, whose career as a photographer in and around Washington spanned more than half a century.
Sometime after his death, a collection of his prints and negatives wound up in the Observer-Reporter’s archives. Among them are a dozen or more moving portraits of aged veterans of the Civil War, and photos capturing the area’s heavy industry in its heyday. But also among the many images are snapshots like these two, of ordinary people who might have been friends or relatives of the photographer. The girl on the left appears in several other photos in the collection and might be a daughter or niece.
We’d like to locate Harbaugh’s descendants in order to share the collection with them. And we’re hoping that our readers might be able to identify these people and provide clues we can follow in our quest.
The photos were most likely taken in the early 1950s. Perhaps some readers might be able to identify the location of the photo of the girls from the houses in the background.
If you think you might know who these people are, where and when they were pictured, or any other information about the photographer, email Park Burroughs, retired executive editor, at pburroughs@observer-reporter.com, or call and leave a message for him along with your telephone number at 724-222-2200, extension 2400. With a little assistance from our readers, we may be able to solve this puzzle and publish our findings next Monday.