A rich collection of historic photos from Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park has been placed online.

When Gretchen Voeks took over as curator of Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley National Park 11 years ago, she knew she wanted to find a way to manage its vast collection of historic photos and relics.

Scotty’s Castle, the private home built by Albert Johnson and Death Valley legend Walter “Scotty” Scott starting in 1922, presented Voeks with what she called an “interesting problem.” As a conservator and curator, she was interested in how to best preserve the artifacts in Death Valley’s rugged climate – especially when so many of them were open to both the elements and the public.

What started as a problem turned into a years-long endeavor to scan and digitize 8,000 historic and more recent photos of the castle. The result is a newly posted catalog of 568 Scotty’s Castle photos taken between 1922 and 1954 and posted online.

Voeks said that while 8,000 photos have been digitized – all of them by a park volunteer -- the 568 posted online are those that had no copyright limitations. They include snapshots that chronicle the desert escapades of Scotty, Johnson, his wife Bessie, and their friends and family in the home and surrounding desert.

Volunteers spent a total of about 3,000 hours researching the photos, writing descriptions to accompany each one and gathering other details needed for publication. Voeks said in addition to making the photos available to the public, the project allowed for the original photographs to be less susceptible to damage from use and wear, and the online publication makes it possible for many more people to access the materials.

“I was concerned about damage being done to them by researchers going through them,” Voeks said. “This way we can protect the originals.”

A single volunteer started the project in 2014 and scanned 1,000 photos the first year, Voeks said. It took about four seasons for all of the 8,000 photos to be scanned. In 2017, three additional volunteers set about adding complete descriptions and researching copyrights.

The collection includes photos taken by Johnson and his friends, as well as by Mat Roy Thompson, the engineer who built the castle for the Johnsons. He took numerous photos of the construction project as it progressed between 1922 and 1931, and many of those original photos are included in the collection online.

The castle and its owners were a quirky bunch, and many of the photos are reflective of the personality of Scotty and the Johnsons, along with other friends and family. The photos are as much a history of Scotty’s Castle as they are a record of fashion and lifestyle in the 1920s and 1930s. Every detail of the building of the castle is also chronicled.

Johnson, a wealthy and eccentric Chicago businessman, financed the project and much of the labor was done by Native Americans in the area. Some of the photos also depict the workers of the period, including some in traditional Native American clothing. Voeks said because construction was going on during the Depression, Johnson would also go to Los Angeles and drive workers to Death Valley.

As more research into the photos is completed they will be added to the online catalog, Voeks said.

Her next endeavor is to catalog an oral history of the castle and other areas of the park. As with the photos, Voeks said she is depending on volunteers to help with the next project too. In fact, Voeks said she is looking for volunteers to help organize the recordings, determine what needs to be done, and eventually transcribe both old and new recordings.

For now, Scotty’s Castle is closed to visitors after a devastating flood in 2015 and a fire in its visitor’s center this past April. Repairs are scheduled to begin soon, and the castle in slated to reopen in 2023.

The photos can be viewed at https://npgallery.nps.gov/deva. Click on the grey box at the bottom titled Search All Archive Assets, then click on an image and click on “image information and downloads” just above the image.