Historical Ponca City business to close

(Ponca City-AP) -- After more than 30 years of printing photos from glass negatives Ray and Velma Falconer are closing their business. <br><br>The Falconers closed the Ponca City business, The Glass Negative,

Monday, January 19th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(Ponca City-AP) -- After more than 30 years of printing photos from glass negatives Ray and Velma Falconer are closing their business.

The Falconers closed the Ponca City business, The Glass Negative, and retired earlier this month, leaving a legacy of thousands of historic photos from Indian tribes to a photo of Abraham Lincoln that might have been used on the 5-dollar bill.

Some of the historical glass negatives have gone on to the Western History Collection at the University of Oklahoma. But many of the negatives are still in the Falconers' store.

They started their business after Ray Falconer, now 81, decided in 1968 he would like to have a historic camera from a Ponca City studio that was closing after operating since 1894.

Relatives of the deceased operator told Falconer that if he wanted the camera, he would have to take everything else with it.

So the family took over the business and inherited thousands of negatives that showed historical Ponca City buildings, oil fields, families and tribes.