In 1898 Nellie Stockbridge left her home in Illinois to work with Thomas Barnard at his Wallace, Idaho photography studio. In 1907 she purchased a quarter share of the business and eventually assumed full ownership. Over the next decades, working often to exhaustion, Nellie photographed the people and places of one of the richest mining areas of the world, the Coeur d’Alene Mining District. While portrait photography was the mainstay of her studio, Nellie skillfully photographed the area’s mining industries, both above ground and below, creating a visual record of historical significance to Idaho and beyond.