A challenge and an interest in all things old combined in Genoa resident Ron Bommarito's collection of historic photographs.
As an 8-year-old boy, Bommarito, now 53, started collecting memorabilia from the Civil War. When his family moved to Nevada in the 1960s he found it hard to find items from the war and his collection began to branch out.
Somewhere along the way a woman told him he'd never find any photos of Nevada because some doctor in Reno had them all.
Today his collection has overwhelmed even him.
"It is so beyond just me now," he said.
Bommarito has a 10,000-piece collection of Nevada photographs. Many are originals such as the triple-plate photo Carlton Watkins took of Virginia City in about 1875. The well-known shot looking west from somewhere near the Combination mine shaft, is a combination of three mammoth-sized photos into one panoramic shot. The photo still in its original frame once hung on the wall in the Bank of California. The bank is best known today as the Ponderosa Saloon and is on the southwest corner of C and Taylor streets in Virginia City.
"I'm mostly interested in photos from the boom period of a town," he said. "I have pictures of Tonopah when it was just getting going and from almost any other town during its boom such as Rochester. I collect everything, mainly originals. I don't collect copies unless they are from the period when the photo was taken.
"I don't care what size it is or why it was taken. Sometimes you take a picture of something when you drop your camera that you wouldn't take a picture of on purpose. But it still tells something about a place and time."
Standing in the kitchen of his Victoria-era home in Genoa, Bommarito thumbed through a box of photos from Carson City.
The grouping included photos of Carson Street taken when the Capitol grounds were still Abe Curry's square, shots of the Sacramento Saloon and some stereo views.
A stereo view is a set of two photos placed side by side on a 3-inch by 8-inch card. Viewing them with a stereo scope makes the image three dimensional.
Stereo scopes and views were often found in parlors and are one way 19th century photographers found to sell their wares.
"Stereo views are rare," he said.
Photos around the turn of the century, 1900, were sometimes made into postcards.
"The (photographers) had this gadget where they could write (when and where the photo was taken) on the negative," he said. "This one is a true postcard photo - see it has no border. It's a regular photo."
In addition to the Watkins photos, Bommarito has photos from a man named Edward S. Curtis, who photographed Native Americans, and J.H. Crockwell, of 28 S. C St. in Virginia City.
The box also yielded visiting cards, or carte de visites/album views, from Lawrence Houseworth of San Francisco and cabinet views taken by A.L. Smith of Carson City.
A cabinet view is a photo usually placed in a cabinet as a curio object. One of Smith's cabinet views in Bommarito's collection is of the Noteware home in Carson City.
