A massive tip of my hat to Travis Heying, friend and staff photographer at the Wichita Eagle. A box of old 4×5 negatives was recently dumped at work, so he decided to scan and post about a dozen to Facebook. He believes the the majority of the negatives are from long-time Wichita photojournalist Jerry Clark, who worked at both the Eagle and Beacon newspapers for nearly 50 years.

According to Travis, there are hundreds and hundreds of negatives from 1950’s assignments, including some from the devastating Udall tornado in 1955. Someone snagged the entire collection at an estate sale and thought that the newspaper might like to have it. “We’ll never know how those negs ended up in an old shoebox in Newton,” Travis said. It reminds me a bit of the recent Vivian Maier treasure trove.

The first shot is my favorite. And so is the second, but for different reasons. More photos after the jump.