Faces of the Mother Road brings Route 66 to life

          I enjoy photography and history and when I recently learned about an exhibit called “Faces of the Mother Road: The Lost Portraits of S.J. Tyler,” I had to know more.
               I started researching and learning more about the photography display. 
            It had all came about in 2023 when author and photographer, Adam Forgash, discovered a series of several thousand antique glass photo negatives in a flea market in Manhattan, New York.
Eight months later, while browsing through thousands of anonymous glass photo negatives, Forgash discovered an envelope tucked away between two of the glass negatives advertising Sydney Joseph Tyler’s Photography Studio in Afton, Okla.
            Afton is located in far northeast Oklahoma near Joplin, Mo.
       Forgash reached out to The University of Tulsa’s Mary F. Barnard Professor of Nineteenth-Century American History Kristen Oertel.
         “He just emailed me out of the blue and said, ‘I found these glass negatives at this flea market and I thought they were really beautiful, so I bought them,’” recalled Oertel. “‘Do you think they’re as significant as I think they might be?’”
           Forgash sent the first batch of photographs to Oertel, who noted that they appeared to be taken in the 1920s and 30s.
          “What struck me was how many different kinds of people were represented by the photographs,” she said. “I think we have this impression of early 20th-century photography being of only middle - and upper - class white families who had the money to sit for a photography session. Tyler seems to have gone out of his way to capture every kind of person who was traveling and living along Route 66.”
          In doing research, Forgash discovered that Tyler had a diverse clientele, including Black, Asian, Latino, Indigenous and mixed families. At the time, Afton was a hub of activity, and the surrounding regions brought a lot of tourism to the town.
          In the 1920s, Afton served as a prominent Frisco division point and shipping center. While in the 1930s, the town saw a decline in agricultural jobs, benefiting from Route 66 (Main Street) which spurred commerce.     Today, the economy is more tourist-supported with the creation of Grand Lake of the Cherokees in 1940.
        For three decades, Tyler’s portraits were taken on fragile glass plates, then forgotten for nearly a century. The images are more than photographs – they are a time capsule of early America.
       Tyler moved from Pennsylvania to Afton in 1912 and bought a studio owned by R. A. Younger. He lived and worked there from 1913 to 1949. Tyler’s wife, Nettie, worked at the Afton Eagle as the society page editor. The couple later moved back to Pennsylvania.
     Tyler’s studio was located on what would eventually become part of America’s famous Route 66, undoubtedly contributing to his wide range of clients.
         Route 66 opened in 1926.
       “Although the photo studio was in Afton, this is really a story about the travelers of the Mother Road,” said Forgash. “Most of the photographer’s subjects were everyday travelers passing through the region, making this collection a unique and unseen glimpse into the history of Route 66, northeast Oklahoma, and the people and cultures that shaped the region.”
        In a partnership with the Route 66 Alliance, and author/historian Michael Wallis, “Faces of the Mother Road: The Lost Portraits of S.J. Tyler” exhibit opened at the University of Tulsa in January 2026 and was on display for two months. Since that time, Forgash has been reaching out to museums along Route 66 in hopes of displaying the exhibit elsewhere.
        Forgash, who has been buying, selling and collecting antique photographs and photographic equipment for 30 years, said it’s been tough going trying to find museums to accept the display.
        “I want to get the photo display out of there because it is important,” he said.
         It appears that the main issue is funding.
        “I’m paying for this out of my pocket,” Forgash said in an telephone interview.
        Forgash does have a show booked in New Mexico in the near future and he and an author from Tulsa are working on a book project of the glass negative antique photos. There is no timeline on the book.
        The photos and portraits I’ve seen on Facebook and the Internet are just beautiful. I hope Forgash can get the funding he needs to showcase the exhibit.
         It would be worth a trip to Oklahoma or Missouri to see the photos.
        For more information on the earlier exhibit in Tulsa and the Faces of the Mother Road visit the project’s website at: www.facesofthemotherroad.com.
         If you would like to donate to this project, please contact Forgash through the website.
         Remember that Good Things are Happening, every day and always.