Del Stelling Photo Archives
Del Stelling was a beloved founding member and first president of the Dan Patch Historical Society and publisher of its newsletter. After attending the Minnesota School of Business he worked in many capacities as an editor, reporter, writer, photographer and publisher for either the Sun Newspapers or The Savage Review. For over 30 years he accumulated negatives of pictures that chronicled the lives and events of Savage, Burnsville, Eagan and the surrounding communities. Del loved sharing the history of the area and wrote in an easy to read home spun style.
Del was born June 18, 1917 (the year after Dan Patch died) and his storytelling ended on January 7th, 2011 at the age of 93.
Del is remembered as an excellent newspaperman, a gifted historian an a gentleman.
After his death his family donated shoe box after shoe box and metal file after metal file of thousands of negatives; many people and places that are long gone.
Jack Kennelly, a retired lover of history with deep roots in Burnsville (he basically created the Burnsville Historical Society online archives - www.burnsvillehistory.org), and he couldn’t wait to dig into this collection. Jack took on this 2 plus year labor of love that kept him busy during the pandemic. The project involved identifying and labeling people, places and events; labeling over 4500 negatives and posting to their web site and producing a database of content. Many images were accepted by the Minnesota Historical Society (see link below) for their digital collection. Original negatives are in the archives of the Dan Patch Historical Society at the Savage Public Library.
Del was born June 18, 1917 (the year after Dan Patch died) and his storytelling ended on January 7th, 2011 at the age of 93.
Del is remembered as an excellent newspaperman, a gifted historian an a gentleman.
After his death his family donated shoe box after shoe box and metal file after metal file of thousands of negatives; many people and places that are long gone.
Jack Kennelly, a retired lover of history with deep roots in Burnsville (he basically created the Burnsville Historical Society online archives - www.burnsvillehistory.org), and he couldn’t wait to dig into this collection. Jack took on this 2 plus year labor of love that kept him busy during the pandemic. The project involved identifying and labeling people, places and events; labeling over 4500 negatives and posting to their web site and producing a database of content. Many images were accepted by the Minnesota Historical Society (see link below) for their digital collection. Original negatives are in the archives of the Dan Patch Historical Society at the Savage Public Library.
