national aerial resources || the jack ammann collection

The Jack Ammann Aerial Photography Collection

The story of national aerial resources' Jack Ammann Collection goes back farther than April of 1995, when it was acquired by nar. Jack Ammann, for whom the collection is named, was originally an employee of Edgar Tobin Aerial Surveys. In 1939 he formed Jack Ammann P.E., and he continued his work taking aerial photography until the mid 1960's. Most of the collection consists of aerial reconnaissance photography for geological mapping done for mineral reserves studies and for the oil and gas industries.

the ammann collection as it came off the truck After Ammann's death in the mid 1960's, the collection was transferred to Petroleum Industries, Inc., who maintained the collection for many years until it went to the collection of IntraSearch in Denver, Colorado. IntraSearch kept the photography for a number of years and when they finally needed the room it occupied, Ray Platt called Bob Shuey, former managing director of nar. nar ended up with this fascinating and very extensive 750,000 frame collection of photography in April of 1995. Other photography acquired in the deal with Platt and IntraSearch included a 54,000 frame collection of photography of the Appalachian Basin, taken during the 1950's.

Prior to the Jack Ammann Collection acquisition, nar already had a substantial collection of coverage made up of scattered areas of the Northeastern US, with some coverage from as far away as Texas and Nevada.

Acquisition of NAR-Northeast Aerial Photography Collection

The Rist-Frost Aerial Group from Massena, NY started producing aerial photography around 1952. Somewhere in the early 1980's, they stopped this service. This collection found its way to Air Photographics Inc. of Martinsburg WV and then to TVG&A of Lance, PA, who later transferred it to the their Buffalo office.

The photo collection was large and apparently getting "in the way."

In the process of checking on an overdue photo order we were informed that they were no longer offering that photography. When asked why, they stated that they needed the room that the collection took up and were getting rid of the collection. This comment piqued our curiosity, so we asked who was getting the collection. The reply was that no one in particular had laid claim to it yet.

After a few more conversations and a little wrangling, we headed out to Buffalo to take the collection off their hands. Three days later, we had added almost 700 cans of film and various indexing materials to our growing collection. The rest is now history!

The NAR-Northeast Collection is about 130,000 frames big, in 695 cans. The photos range from the early 1950's to about 1991.

The area covered in the new NAR-Northeast Collection is predominantly large-scale photography, flown in New York State, with scattered coverage occurring in other states such as Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and other northeastern states. Much of the coverage is highway, powerline, and river - particularly St. Lawrence Seaway - corridor coverage. Practically nothing over 1"=1000' in scale.

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