WALLACE – “Details create the big picture.”

American bank magnate Sanford Weill probably wasn’t talking about literal pictures when he made this statement years ago, but it holds true with the new exhibit at the Barnard-Stockbridge Museum.

The museum is open for the summer season and has added some pretty big pictures. The purpose of these big images is to allow visitors to explore details and understand little things that made Wallace what it was and what it is today.

Through several restoration projects, nine large-format, panoramic photos are now on display. These photos detail and showcase the evolution of downtown Wallace as the city recovered and rebuilt from the Big Burn of 1910.

“These photos were taken between 1912-1913 in the winter and spring,” executive director Tammy Copelan said. “When you walk into the exhibit you are viewing panoramics down each side of you on display stands with over 30 feet of viewing area.”

Two of these photos, in particular, stand out to Copelan, but for very different reasons.

One of them was shot at the corner of Bank and King Streets, where the road turns to head up toward Moon Pass. Some of the homes in the photo still exist to this day.

The other photo that Copelan encourages people to examine is a panoramic shot of the Samuels Hotel along Cedar Street.

“For those of us who did not live here or were not alive at that time, this photo shows just how large and magnificent this building was,” she explained.

Along with the new pieces, further work has been done to last year’s exhibit, the “Ladies Upstairs Downstairs.”

This exhibit is a photographic history of women who worked in Wallace’s thriving red-light district. Housed on the museum’s lower floor, the display contains nudity and may not be suitable for all ages.

During the museum's recent Spring Fling Gala, more than 100 visited. Copelan hopes for another busy summer.

Barnard–Stockbridge displays images taken by Thomas Barnard and Nellie Stockbridge in their studio and the surrounding community between 1893-1965.

The original collection of images numbered in the hundreds of thousands, all preserved in the University of Idaho Library Special Collections Unit.

The collection has been fully digitized, cataloged by subject and is considered the best photographic collection in the Northwest, and one of the seven best collections in the U.S. The museum has a memorandum of understanding with the university that allows the museum full access to all digitized images.

The museum opened in 2019, inside the former Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, which had closed the year before due to a lack of congregants.

The building itself is a work of art and was designed by Kirtland Cutter, who also designed the Davenport Hotel in downtown Spokane.

The Barnard-Stockbridge Museum is open seven days a week 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. through the end of Wallace’s tourist season.