City of Gaffney employees repair the parking lot entrance at the new Cherokee County History and Arts Museum. The museum opens to the public Saturday. An old milk bottle is propped alongside a photo of Humphries Dairy Farm inside a display case at the Cherokee County museum.

The dairy farm was operated by the Humphries family in the 1920s and 1930s off Old Post Road. This is among 250 images photographer June Carr captured on glass plate negatives after moving to Gaffney from Charlottesville, Va., in 1902.

Introduced in 1848, photography on glass plates allowed images to be reproduced in fine detail.

His photos include the Cherokee Avenue School and the Commercial Hotel built in the 1890s at the corner of Robinson and North Limestone streets.

The rare pictures from Carr's collection have been at the Cherokee County Public Library for many years, county museum director Billy Pennington said.

The library is now allowing the county museum to display the photographs so residents can get a glimpse at buildings and people dating back to the early 19th century.

County residents will be able to view some of the Carr photography collection May 17 when the Cherokee County Museum opens to the public. The museum plans to digitally archive the Carr images.

"This partnership with the Cherokee County Public Library will allow the museum to display images from their June Carr photography collection on an ongoing basis," Pennington said. "We felt the best way to preserve the photographs would be to digitally archive the images."

Carr operated a photography studio in the Baker Building in Gaffney from 1907 until his retirement in 1950.

His photography collection is highlighted in a book by Helen Vassy Callison and Bobby Moss, titled "Cherokee County's First Half Century Through The Lens of June H. Carr."

Carr is credited in the book with introducing the concept of wire service photography to the news media.

"Carr's photograph of a nursing home in Cherokee County destroyed by fire was the first ever transmitted

by wire, a feat scarcely known even in the community

that was his home for better

than a century," the book reads. "Those who knew June H. Carr during his lifetime felt that lack of recognition would not have disturbed him; quite the contrary, remaining in the background would have been far more compatible with his natural modesty."

County residents will be able to learn more about the county's history by viewing the Carr photography collection in the Cherokee County Museum.

The museum is involved in discussions with local photographers such as Rodger Painter so their images can be displayed in future exhibits, Pennington said.

"One of the purposes of the Cherokee Historical and Arts Preservation Society is the preservation of artifacts for future generations," he said.