Grabill Collection - Library of Congress

John C. H. Grabill was a photographer whose images help tell the history of the Black Hills and surrounding plains area of South Dakota and Wyoming. The images in this gallery were submitted by Grabill to the Library of Congress between 1887 and 1892. They reflect a wide range of activities from mining and railroading to ranching and variety of ceremonial festivities in military camps and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The one hundred and eighty-eight photographs are thought to be the largest surviving collection of this gifted, early Western photographer's work. Grabill's remarkably well-crafted, sepia-toned images capture the forces of western settlement in South Dakota and Wyoming and document its effects on the area's indigenous communities.