Clarence E. Bisbee was actively engaged as a commercial photographer in the Magic Valley area from 1906 until the 1940's. In the early years, he was hired by the Twin Falls Land and Water Company to promote the newly developed Twin Falls irrigation tract. The importance of his work to the local communities and in a statewide context is due to his artistic bent combined with his technical skills, and his recording of not only agricultural development, but also architectural and community events.

    Most of Bisbee's pictures were promotional in nature, since what the new irrigated country needed more than anything else was settlers. He took hundreds of pictures of sagebrush clearing, canal digging, new orchards, alfalfa crops, prosperous new farms, and trees laden with fruit.

Purely as an architectural record, the Bisbee collection is invaluable. Just about every building of importance in Twin Falls, Jerome, Buhl, and Kimberly was recorded as it was built.

The collection includes many titled and some dated photographs of famous people, parades, community fairs and other seasonal events.

    Twin Falls Public Library has a lending set of negative and positive slides and a file of 5x7 viewable prints. Some pictures are also available as 8x10 mounted display photos. There are various index formats available for access to the collection.

    In 2002, the Library started a project of scanning each Bisbee glass plate and digitizing all photos onto CD ROM Disks, and also installing the photos in a searchable database computer.  This Bisbee Digitization Project was completed early in 2004, with all 2,650 Bisbee photos now searchable and available on a computer at the Library, with Staff assistance.  Since the completion of the project, another 2,350 photos by other early Twin Falls photographers have been added to this database. Due to the size and complexity of this database, it is not available to the public, but can be searched with Staff assistance to select photos, print or email photos as requested. With Staff help, patrons can find photos of early Twin Falls under many subjects and the Library can "burn" a copy of up to 15 selected photos onto a CD ROM disk, or print up to 15 photos on photo paper in the 8" X 10" size. An Order Form for Photographic Collection Copies is available at the Reference Desk to request up to 15 photos. 
  

Here is a small sample of the collection. (5,000 photos are now available at the Library in a higher DPI. Come to the Library, if you need better quality, or would like to view the rest of the collection.)
 

Photo of Clarence Bisbee	Perrine Bridge 1927	An Idaho Land Drawing
Enjoying Life in a Buick	Shoshone Falls Ferry	Twin Falls Public Library, 1926
Perrine Hotel	Stagecoach on Blue Lakes Grade	Electric Railroad at High School
Main Street 1910	1st Airplane in Twin Falls	Baseball 1915
Blue Lake Blvd North	Parade on Main Avenue	Building Electric Railroad Line
Opening Day at Salmon Dam	Circus Elephants Parade	Shoshone Falls
Riverside Ferry in Hagerman	Fire Fighters 1906	Fire Department 1920
Fire Department ca. 1910	Snake River Sturgeon	Flag Day 1910 Shoshone Falls
Cluster Lighting - City Park	Grubbing Sagebrush	Horses
Protest March ca 1933	Pack Animals to Jarbidge, NV	First Automobile Parade
City Park & High School	Jackrabbits	William J. Bryan in Twin Falls
Potato Digger & Sorter	Stagecoach on Blue Lakes Grade	Log Stairs, Shoshone Falls
Traction Engine	4th of July Parade 1912	R.R. Yards, Jerome Idaho
Railroad Cars at back of TFHS	The Twin Falls	Twin Falls City View 1906
Threshing near Twin Falls	Stagecoach on Blue Lakes Bridge	Freighters and 1st National Bank

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