Sun-Times photo archive rescued and being restored by Chicago History Museum

These are some of Chicago Sun-Times photojournalist Rich Hein’s negatives from a Gulf War protest in downtown Chicago in January 1991. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia / Sun-Times

In December 2017, an executive from the Chicago History Museum opened a 30-by-30-foot storage locker in Dixon and found more than 225 containers inside it containing roughly 5 million negative frames from Chicago Sun-Times photographs.

Cardboard boxes at the bottom of the stacks had been crushed under the weight of the bins above, and negatives by photojournalists such as Pulitzer Prize-winner John H. White, Pete Souza, Bob Black and Nancy Stuenkel had spilled onto the floor.

Until then, the location and condition of the newspaper’s photo archive had been a mystery — owners and employees of the Sun-Times were unaware the negatives were sitting in a storage facility about 100 miles west of Chicago.

The millions of images captured iconic moments. There was the back-to-school Bud Billiken Parade in 1953. Elvis Presley performing at the Chicago Stadium in 1972. Mayor Harold Washington being inaugurated in 1983. Walter Payton playing during the Chicago Bears championship 1985 season.

“I was blown away,” said John Russick, the history museum’s vice president for interpretation and education, who made the discovery that day.

Now, 16 full- and part-time Chicago History Museum employees have been working around the clock to organize and digitize large batches of the newspaper’s images — mostly 35-millimeter negatives shot over a span of 75 years, beginning in the mid-1900s.

More than 100 of those images go on display Friday in a free exhibition at the museum titled “Millions of Moments: The Chicago Sun-Times Photo Collection.” They can be seen in café-style space equipped with extra outlets for laptops and cellphones.

The exhibition’s opening comes as the museum reopens after being closed for three months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Entry to the museum will be limited to 275 people, with groups of no more than 10, among other restrictions because of the pandemic. Visitors will be asked to maintain a six-foot distance from each other and wear face masks. Museum admission is free through July 31.

Also Friday, 45,000 Sun-Times images are available for the public to view on the museum’s website, and archivists plan to add a few thousand images every month as they scan more negatives. People can purchase copies of these images online under a licensing deal between the Sun-Times and the museum.

The view from under the L tracks, looking south from State and Lake streets on Nov. 4, 1947, as shot by Sun-Times photographer Bill Sturm.

“Newspaper photography — newspaper photo morgues — are really a critical part of the story and a great opportunity to create a visual record of a changing city,” Russick said. “They’re visually documenting change over time, and in that visual record is an incredible story of the city of Chicago.”

The path the negatives took from the Sun-Times to the museum is a story in itself. The newspaper sold the photography archive to Arkansas sports memorabilia collector John Rogers in 2009. The Sun-Times retained the copyrights, and Rogers was going to digitize every image.

But Rogers scanned only a portion of the images before being sentenced in December 2017 to 12 years in federal prison for a $23 million scam involving fake sports memorabilia. He is scheduled for release in 2028.

After Rogers was arrested and his businesses were closed, it isn’t clear how the trove of Sun-Times negatives got from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Dixon. The archive was sold multiple times, with buyers apparently cherry-picking the images they wanted to keep.

Chicago Sun-Times photographert Gene Pesek’s negatives from a news conference held by Mayor Harold Washington in July 1986.

But, in late 2017, a Dixon businessman was put in contact with the Chicago History Museum, and, in June 2018, it acquired the storage locker filled with negatives for $125,000.

Now, thanks in part to a three-year grant from the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the museum is able to begin showcasing the images.

Russick said it’s expected to take more than three years to organize and digitize the entire acquisition and that the museum is “actively looking for donors” to support the project.

“We’re grateful the history museum has found a home for our photo archive and is digitizing it so that generations of museum-goers can view our city’s past through the unique lens of the Sun-Times,” said Chris Fusco, the paper’s executive editor. “The images — whether from news, sports or entertainment stories — show not only the growth of our city and region but also the evolution of news photography and its continued importance to news consumers.”

A portion of the“Millions of Moments: The Chicago Sun-Times Photo Collection” exhibition at the Chicago History Museum.

Once bins of film started moving from the storage locker to the museum in November 2018, archivists began organizing the negative envelopes, which often were hastily labeled in ink by editors working on deadline.

Julie Wroblewski, the museum’s head of collections, said her team is organizing the envelopes first by decade, then by year within the decade, then by date within the year.

A sample of the millions of negative envelopes from the Chicago Sun-Times photography archive, acquired in June 2018 by the Chicago History Museum.

“It’s a little bit scary, like climbing a mountain,” Wroblewski said. “It’s a large project. But it’s also really rewarding because you can see what a broad swath of Chicago history is here and the thrill of seeing things that may never have been seen other than by the people who went out to take the pictures.”

Thousands of images from photojournalist Rich Hein, now photo editor, were included in the museum’s acquisition.

“It will be nice to know that, long after I’m gone, someone will be able to see what I saw,” said Hein, who started shooting for the paper in August 1984. “I’m very thankful for the opportunity to contribute to this collection of images.”